Beyond The Horizon With SCOTT IAN LEWIS From CARNIFEX

Interview by Kris Peters
For nearly two decades metal outfit Carnifex have managed to push
themselves musically further which each release.
Although fitting snuggly into their chosen extreme metal genre, the
band have also experimented both within and outside of the
conventional parameters of their music, peeling back layers while
simultaneously structuring new passages along the way.
With their ninth full length studio album Necromanteum set to be
unleashed on October 6, Carnifex have tapped into another realm
both musically and thematically, exploring the supernatural and
sordid tales of nightmares and inner conflict unlike ever
before.
It is much less introspective and personal than their previous
offering Graveyard Confessions, with orchestrations and atmospheric
landscapes drafted into the sonic landscape to create a sense of
foreboding lyrically to match the musical output.
Frontman Scott Ian Lewis joined HEAVY to explore Necromanteum even
further.
"I'm pretty stoked," he smiled when asked about the new album. "I'm
excited to get the full record out there. I know we've got a couple
of singles, but I'm still a whole record kind of guy so getting the
record out to the fans is really what I look forward to the
most"
We ask Lewis to dive deeper into the musical nature of
Necromanteum.
"It's a bit different to the last one," he measured. "I think a big
part of it is we've got a new member - Neal, our new guitarist - so
we wrote this album as a five piece, compared to writing Graveside
Confessions as a four piece. We were able to work with an outside
studio. We worked with Jason Suecof at Auto Hammer out in Florida
and we also worked with an outside... I guess composer is the word
for all the orchestral arrangements, which we had never done that
before. And then lyrically and kind of the themes of the music are
pretty different. It's a much more outward looking record. Kind of
more universal themes compared to the last album which was very
inward looking and kind of more of a self assesment, where this one
is an assessment of the space that we all share."
In the full interview, Scott talks more about the musical side of
the album, the singles released and how they reflect the album as a
whole, having Tom Barber from Chelsea Grin guest on Death's
Forgotten Children, the central themes throughout the album, what
sort of research he did, the pros and cons of self producing an
album, Neal and what he brings to Carnifex, using an actual
orchestral arrangement, their upcoming tour and more.