Savagery at Its Finest: Carnifex at Boney Junes 

Rock is a loose genre.  Standing tall as a giant umbrella, it encompasses every offshoot category.  Alternative, progressive, pop-rock, grunge, metal, hair metal, death metal, black metal, sludge, screamo, and so on.  The roots spread wide and deep, creeping into new areas at a brisk pace, steadily shapeshifting.

There are varying levels of brutality, viciousness and shock factor snaking throughout the broad spectrum looming under the shade of the towering rock umbrella.  From something your mom can enjoy, say Three Doors Down or Matchbox 20, to Cannibal Corpse or Slayer the demented kid down the street listens to.  There’s pansy music and there’s brutal music, fluff and furious.  There’s rock that celebrates life and rock that celebrates death, and rock for everything in between.

For instance, consider the band Nickelback.  They suck, end of discussion.  They churn out awful songs that are incessantly pounded into the ground by radio, dug up and feverishly pounded into the ground yet again.  Personal hatred for Nickelback aside, on a brutality level, they register around the equivalent of a mosquito bite; not very painful or aggressive, more annoying than anything.  Just a pesky, lame bump of poison that that irritates with every raking scratch; a constant reminder of the nuisance they’ve inflicted upon you.

Carnifex is Latin for 'Executioner'

Moving across the spectrum a bit, we find Fear Factory.  Heavy, fast and periodically angry, their riffs will permeate your thick skin and rattle your bones, kind of like being punched square in the face by man/monster Kimbo Slice.  Their periodic melody makes them tolerable at times for a more common, less edgy radio audience.  Remember their cover of Gary Numan’s ‘Cars?’  Not their heaviest showing, opposite punishing tunes like ‘Concrete’ or ‘Cyberwaste.’  Similar to a teeter totter, they cycle back and forth between somber despair and shades of hatred.

Then you tread over to the dank, murky end of the spectrum, the shady part where radio dares not go.  Utter brutality lurks here, defined by riffs of fury and growls of hatred.  This is no mosquito bite or knuckle-sandwich from Kimbo Slice; this is the realm of multiple stab wounds followed by a searing blow torch and crude decapitation.  This is the stuff your parents despise and expletive-spewing hip hop artists cower from (with exception to Ice-T).  This is where the beasts dwell.

Here in this tense part of the spectrum, where the hair stands on the back of your neck, we find genuine brutality.  Residing here are bands such as Carnifex, All Shall Perish, Cannibal Corpse, Lamb of God (my personal favorite), Six Feet Under, Slayer, Soulfly, Annotations of an Autopsy, Suicide Silence, and many other bands I don’t have the space to mention (and many not fit for print on this page).  Violent mosh pits swirl and collide, often displaying the worst temperament society has to offer when one of these bands plays live.  This music embodies frustration and raw, potent energy, exploding at breakneck speeds and killer tones that can spark riots, motivate you to bench press 225 pounds or push you over that rickety, steep psychological edge.  No sir, this is no insignificant mosquito bite.  This far surpasses the animalistic wrath of Kimbo Slice; this is like forcing out a walnut-sized kidney stone covered with salt crusted razor-sharp burrs while sipping boiling battery acid. 

So, where might one go to find such musical brutality around Evansville?  The answer falls on Friday, June 13th (AHHH!---JASON!), at Boney Junes when Victory Records own, Carnifex, brings their headlining tour into town with guests Embrace the End and Conducting From the Grave.

This five-man deathcore act from Fallbrook, California (not to be confused with Estonian progressive metal band, Carnifex) will crank up the brutal level with sonic punishment including ‘Slit Wrist Savior,’ ‘Lie to My Face’ and the volatile ‘Collaborating Like Killers’ from their 2007 album, Dead in My Arms.

Latin for “executioner,” Carnifex is just that.  Pummeling viciousness and rib shattering hostility await you, so mark your calendar and get your ticket to witness musical savagery at its finest.