Carnifex Celebrates 15 Years of Hell Chose Me In Houston!

Carnifex headlined at Warehouse Live Midtown in Houston, Tx on June 26th, 2025 with support from Suffocation, Devourment, Distant, Bodybox, and Etsai on the Hell Chose Me 15 Year Anniversary Tour!

Carnifex is an American deathcore band originating from San Diego County, California and was formed in 2005. Their current lineup consists of vocalist Scott Ian Lewis, lead guitarist Neal Tiemann, bassist Fred Calderon, rhythm guitarist Cory Ardford, and drummer Shawn Cameron.

Fifteen years ago in February of 2010, Carnifex released their third album in the deathcore scene. Advancing on what they were already pushing with their previous albums “The Diseased And The Poisoned” and “Dead In My Arms“. They pushed the envelope with honed technique and amazing production quality by Zack Ohren and the band itself. This defined the direction the band would move as they grew into their skin.

Hell Chose Me

Opening with the album titled track there’s a turn from their previous albums. The album doesn’t shy away from exposing the listeners to the direction the band has taken before with eviscerating blast beats, technical guitar rhythms, while leaving behind typical breakdowns (in the traditional sense) with vocals from Scott Ian Lewis that seem to hit every range of screams we’ve heard across the metal scene so far.

Dead Archetype

“Dead Archetype” in my mind is totally given to Shawn Cameron (drums). The intro of cascading blast beats laid alongside the seemingly contradicting vocals “I am the soul of a nameless machine,” only lend emotion to the context of the song. Comparing modern mechanism to human soul, in the traditional metal context of ironic suffering. While rhythm guitarist Cory Arford delivers technical heavy ground work alongside brutal mechanized drums. It paints a picture of Hell on an auditory/systematic plain with gears turning, mashing, and crushing. A punishment of one who hangs the hangman’s distance from the ground.

Entombed Monarch

“Entombed Monarch” could almost be seen as a monument to the death metal bands that came before Carnifex. Entering with a technical lead riff from what I presume to be Ryan Gudmunds (lead guitar), setting the tone for what I would expect to be a break from all the chaos. Instead right at 00:53 seconds you’re hit with the most brutal, bass driven, face melting breakdown I’ve heard in any album since. Swinging right back into that new found technical drive seconds later and then when you think it’s over one more time.

Heartless

Re-approaching this album, I found a song that has lead me to re-categorize my ever evolving list of top 10 death metal songs. As a dying fan of bands like “Yes” and Chuck Schuldner’s “Death,” it is quite a personal feat to say I had to make room for Carnifex’s “Heartless”. The beautiful acoustic guitar intro has me repeating the song over and over again just to hear it one more time. With volume increasing, integral to the emotion of the rest of the song. This is what set them on the path of a band that was out to make their mark on the world. The whole album retains artistic integrity, but this song was the band putting their wax seal on their “death letter”. As I said before Carnifex left behind meaningless breakdowns, but that doesn’t mean they gave up on the notion. Heavy chugging riffs carry the acoustic intro into a technical bridge, working the emotion over until reaching what modern listeners would call a breakdown, but instead of simple rhythmic riffs we’re met with brutal vocals that repeat to drive the point home. Along with blast beats and a guitar rhythm that somehow could match a Final Fantasy game.

Sorrowspell

The drum intro had me thinking along the lines of the late great Joey Jordison, may he rest in peace. Shawn Cameron performed at a staggering pace so effortlessly. Something more thought provoking on a tribal level. A drum lead first person experience in hatred, almost confusing on a level of the listener. Giving you much needed asylum in the melodic guitar part. Not quite. Hell isn’t meant for beauty. It’s more like a disorienting kiss on the cheek. A “you’re welcome,” from the guitarists as an early apology for what I could say is the only “breakdown” in a traditional sense of the album. I could assume the band was itching to let it fly with the murder provoking breakdown for the album. I don’t know if they were pulling the leash on themselves, but if they were they let the dog loose with “I’ll see you in hell where the devil knows my name”.

Names Mean Nothing

“Names Mean Nothing” is a brutal, nihilistic anthem that channels raw emotional fury and relentless aggression. Opening with the bleak declaration of the world as “a dead whore,” the song immediately plunges you into a visceral realm of despair and vengeance. Scott Ian Lewis’s guttural vocals and the crushing riffs forming an utterly oppressive atmosphere. The lyrics paint a haunting internal conflict, revealing a protagonist that is all consumed by loss and violence. The music delivering every word with outrageous intensity. Jagged guitar riffs that move like a spider across the ground, occasionally breaking into somewhat uplifting melodies. While the song is fast paced, it gets completely decapitated by one of the heaviest interludes verses I’ve heard on any deathcore album. With the one truly classic skull crushing breakdown on the album.

The Scope of Obsession

This song was the band telling you they had the technicality and creative width of what it means to be death metal. The brutality, the decrepit nature, the scene of the obscene, but with an original take. Scope Of Obsession scratches that itch of fast paced guitar riffs, heel bleeding double kicks, and that longed for bass tone we’ve somehow lost since the 90’s that takes you to the deepest circle. This song showed us back in the day that the “Death” genre wasn’t done. Far from it. It only had new tools to add to its repertoire. Somehow Carnifex found a way to fuse that deep rooted grinding tone of classics like Death and Cannibal Corpse with modern trends of the bands around them without getting mired and lumped in with them in the process. Finding that sweet spot between low but melodic guitar and bass. Bridges filled with technicalities like perfectly placed pinch harmonics. Drum solos that aren’t solos, just seamlessly blended technical rhythm. And lyrics like an undead poet calling forth a welcomed self induced hell, by the end begging for silence.

By Darkness Enslaved

With “By Darkness Enslaved” the album continues to remind us why Carnifex became a main staple of deathcore. Acting as a tour de force of crunching brutality, the song is a perfect example of Scott’s vocal range between growls and piercing screams. To convey the weight of the songs bleak, introspective lyricism. A show of technique, but also showcasing his ability to write emotionally resonant lyrics. Diving into isolation, inner grief, and lingering nihilism. Meanwhile guitarists craft a cavernous soundscape, like some stone maze of despair and aggression. Razor sharp riffs layered with eerie melodic undertones. A sonic environment that somehow feels vast, but claustrophobic. All the while Shawn Cameron anchors the song with relentless blast beats and brutal double kick rhythms. While the song is undoubtedly heavy, it avoids predictability. Twisting and turning leading you further into the suffocating maze.

The Liars Funeral

“The Liars Funeral” is a venom laced slow burn, a perfect example that brutality doesn’t always have to come at full speed. Here we have Shawn trading the relentless blast beats for a doom-saturated groove of some sort. Holding down some type of weight that could be compared to the slamming shut of a tombstone. Featuring one of the best pre-breakdown riffs I’ve ever heard with a winding guitar riff that cuts like a slow knife before the guitars drop you on your head. The whole song feels like a thick atmospheric weight. Wrestling with themes of betrayal, self-destruction, and the hollow nature of false redemption. The subtle melodies and reverb heavy layers adds what I can only describe as gothic undercurrent, emphasizing once again the bands ability to write songs that are not only crushing but cinematic.

Genocide Initiative

The closing song of course pulls no punches, “Genocide Initiative” ends the album with sheer violence personified. It’s fast, cold, and unrelenting. A final blast of hopelessness and disgust. The song doesn’t just end the album. It buries it six feet under the earth, entombed in a layer of pure seething hatred of human kind. Shawn Cameron is on full throttle, with no atmospheric interludes or breakdowns. It may be his most intense work on the album. Delivering a punishing pace, which Bassist Fred Calderon uses as an anchor to support what is (in my opinion) his best work on the album. Scott uses the opportunity to depart from inflection, turning the hate outward. There is no room for atmosphere or reflection, only pure calculated rage. The song paints humanity as a failed race, deserving of decimation and extinction. And with that, we are finally set down with a grim, somber acoustic lullaby. A funeral song for a world finally laid to waste.