After his split with both Dimmu Borgir and the Covenant guitarist Astennu decided to leave the mainland of Europe and went back to his native country Australia. Besides picking up his old job as a plain mechanic he also found the time to write a new Carpe Tenebrum release. But surprisingly enough Astennu chose for a more death metal approach this time. The more black metal approach with keyboards and scream vocals of the early are completely gone. But to make that up Astennu treats us on a tasty mix of extreme death metal, highly influenced by the masters themselves; Morbid Angel. The alikeness are big, for instance the structure of the songs, the guitar riffs and even the drum breaks.

But that isn’t to hard to imagine when you know that this drummer is electric. The mid tempo riff in “The Telling” could have been on “Gateways to Annihilation” for instance. Although there are lots of vague appellations to Morbid`s work. Astennu is an excellent guitarist and even has a very nice grunt but he should have given the album more of his own touch by, for example, adding some black metal pieces. But there are more bands how refer to there inspiration like Dementor for instance, but I keep asking myself if this is good or bad? I don’t know. And what if the material sounds alright?