LIK - Carnage
July 18, 2018, 5 years ago
(Metal Blade)
Oh, man, it only takes a few seconds of raging opener “To Kill” to get the idea here, Lik (featuring dudes from, among others, Witchery and Katatonia) going Swedish death metal hard on our earholes, images of Clandestine floating violently in our heads. This band put out a debut, Mass Funeral Evocation, in 2015, and if I heard it I forget everything about it (but I do quite like its cover art). Regardless, I suspect that what I hear on Carnage is what I would have heard on the debut, but I wouldn’t be surprised if the band was a bit tighter and more spot-on here, because they are indeed on fire, that aforementioned opener just killing it, “Rid You Of Your Flesh” adding in some great melodies, Lik flirting with a couple different Swedish sounds at once, and doing it with perfect amounts of skill and maturity.
“The Deranged” scrapes the floor with its mid-tempo crawl, and, again, I’m left thinking of the majesty of Clandestine, which is a fantastic comparison for any band on their second album. Like any death metal band doing the Swedish crunch since ’93, there’s nothing new here, but while we’ve heard it before, it’s not often we hear it done this well (just spin late-album highlight “Only Death Is Left Alive” for proof of that). Remember the first time you heard Bloodbath? Lik will take you back there.
