It’s been over the last few years that while I explore the modern sounds of metal piece by piece, it’s also in such fashion that I sift through the household names for the genre little by little. Tool was a name that I’ve known since my childhood, but their sound has never really been something that’s stuck with me in the years of inconsistent effort I’ve put into trying to get into them. Yet, Tool has been immensely influential, as you might imagine, and hearing newer bands take such an influence and essentially make it better is something that I’m always open for and it’s with their upcoming effort that Carneia has done just that for me.

Now, don’t let that previous statement make it sound like Carneia is a blatant rip-off of Tool and I’m applauding laziness because I’m simply not. Simply put, you can really hear the Tool influence on Carneia as you might Cannibal Corpse in any number of death metal acts or Slayer in innumerable thrash bands. What’s different, though, is that it’s with “Voices of the Void” that Carneia has created something that’s as much of a reinterpretation of their influence as much as it is a release of emotional the likes of which you can only get with metal like this. With a vocalist that I’ve become quite familiar with thanks to King Hiss, Carneia brings to the table eight tracks that feel very well constructed as a sort of catharsis for both the band and the listener, but it’s also through some mildly post-metal sounding rhythms and a decent level of accessibility while never ignoring some flavorful aggression that Carneia makes “Voices of the Void” out to be a record that’s quite venomous while simultaneously being somewhat addictive. My only real complaint is how every now and then the flow just feels all sorts of clunky that throws in some monkey wrenches into the current listening experience, but outside that Carneia has done a real bang-up job with “Voices of the Void” where many bands would lose themselves in sounding way too much like their influences to sound interesting. Whereas here it seems Carneia found a delectable middle ground that sounds familiar yet all their own at the same time.

I’ve been critical of a band relying too much on their influences since that, more often than not, leads to an experience that’s simply dreadful and gets to a point to where we ask why shouldn’t we just be listening to the influencers in the first place. Thankfully, and seemingly with ease, Carneia dodges such boredom with “Voices of the Void” being the right amount of respect to their roots and ambition to be all their own that every band should aspire to be at some point should they choose a path like this.

“Voices of the Void” releases on May 3rd!

LISTEN to previous Carneia material on Bandcamp here.

LIKE Carneia on Facebook here.