Carbonstone are caught in a vicious cycle of self-destruction in their new single and video Echoes — showcasing today on Tinnitist.
The Baltimore angst-rockers’ disturbing new single presents a textbook study in tender loving abuse. Singer-guitarist and songwriter Corey James starts off by verbally confronting a partner who, he charges, likes to watch him bleed. “It’s like you love my suffering,” he challenges. It’s a helluvan of an accusation — but by the chorus, he’s admitting that he can’t get enough of it: “Bury me underground, I’ll lie with you / ’Cause alone, I’m nothing.” And if that didn’t get the point across, he adds “I’m so self-destructive,” in what could be the understatement of the century. (Or the cemetery, but more on that later.)
The schizoid despair of the words is matched perfectly by the music, which has all the essential elements in the band’s acclaimed brand of industrial alternative metal. James’ cleanly enunciated vocals emote dramatically above guitars that are overdriven into the red zone, hurtling together toward the cliff of musical passages that end up dangling a taunting half-step above resolution. The effect is profoundly unsettling, yet completely habit-forming.
Viewers will likewise be entranced by the accompanying video, the latest in a long line of slickly produced clips awash in Gothic and/or brutalist imagery. The band shot this one in an actual cemetery during business hours, where they got to play their hearts out in front of a mausoleum while being mock-menaced by a bunch of costumed phantoms portrayed by various friends of the group — including Chrystal James, who fronts Baltimore post-industrial hard rockers Anoxia and also happens to be Corey’s wife. (Just call them the family that slays together.)
The single and video point to another banner year in the renaissance Carbonstone have been enjoying since 2019, when they returned from an extended hiatus to prep their first album, 2021’s Dark Matter. Its singles, AM Trauma and Hush, topped radio charts for over a month while garnering hundreds of thousands of spins. In the wake of that success, standalone singles like Scream, Pins & Needles and Damaged Like You cemented the creative fertility of the band’s latter-day configuration. In addition to James, the lineup includes Steve Junkins on lead guitar, Josh Provencio on guitar, Eric Dee on bass, Ted Hile on drums and programming, and Tony Correlli handling synths and production —with added excitement and embellishment from Frankie the Nightmare Hype Bear.
The new year will bring Carbonstone’s second album, the ominously titled The Absence Of Self. The have shared stages and bills with Orgy, Cold, Drowning Pool, Saliva and Nita Strauss, earning a nomination as Best Metal Band in the 2024 Maryland Music Awards.
Watch the video for Echoes above, hear more from Carbonstone below, and join them on their website, Facebook, Instagram and TikTok.
