Band:	Carnifex
Album:	World War X
Style:	Deathcore
Release date:	August 2019

01. World War X
02. Visions Of The End
03. This Infernal Darkness
04. Eyes Of The Executioner
05. No Light Shall Save Us
06. All Roads Lead To Hell
07. Brushed By The Wings Of Demons
08. Hail Hellfire
09. By Shadows Thine Held

Early in a genre's existence, bands will race each other to push the boundaries and take things to the extremes; ultimately, as the end of the road for a genre comes into sight, bands will change lanes and look for an off-ramp, ending up having a loose connection to the rat race they once took to heart. Carnifex saw this event horizon and took a sharp turn down the symphonic route, with World War X being the latest installment in this change of direction.

Carnifex have refined this new sound and it has slowly come to replace their pure deathcore sound of earlier albums. World War X sees the sound coalesce and mature, which they have been working towards up until now. While the sound has changed, the lyrical focus is still very much the sound of the band of old, featuring some of the most nihilistic and open lines of the band's career up until now.

If you want some crushing metal then you have come to the right place; World War X gives you one hell of a dose of the stuff, with the title track, "Eyes Of The Executioner", and "By Shadows Thine Held" serving as the most potent servings of the album. They showcase the band's evolution well and show how far the band has come from the The Diseased And The Poisoned days. I would say this is easily Carnifex's best-produced album; whereas on Slow Death you had a strange segregation in the songs between Lewis's vocals and the rest of the band, here they sound like one cohesive unit, adding depth to the sound and weight to the attack. Suecof does a good job of balancing the symphonic sounds with the power of the band, and neither sounds like it is sacrificed in order for the other to benefit.

What the band seemingly neglected to do is to write any hooks of note; the songs smash into your skull and bounce around without ever grabbing hold of you and giving you something to differentiate between the tracks. After repeated listens, I put the album on shuffle, and I struggled to tell which track was which once the crutch of the running order was removed. The only track that seemed unique was "All Roads Lead To Hell", which trades in a thick sound for one led by the guitar. Picking the best tracks from the album required me to listen back and look at what was playing before I could select them, rather than remembering which one it was by memory.

World War X is ultimately a good if somewhat unmemorable affair; you will have fun listening to it, but it doesn't make a strong case for itself to be listened to regularly. The band's sound may have found its shape, but it hasn't reached its apex in terms of quality just yet; there is potential here to be built upon, but I would look to the band's future rather than the band's present.