52 Albums That Shaped My Life - #3

Slayer – Reign In Blood

(American Recordings, 1986)

Buy the album here

In honour of Slayer’s legendary speed during the recording of this album, I’m going to attempt to write this review in 28 minutes. That’s just enough time for you to have your skin sliced from your face by King and Hanneman’s duelling solos, your eardrums pierced by Araya’s screams, and your neck thrashed into submission by Lombardo’s incessant snare and bass pedal attack. Rick Rubin infamously cleaned up the band’s sound and played a huge part in shifting the mainstream in the direction of thrash metal, but Slayer still sound more extreme than that today. The album’s grizzled darkness played at hyperspeed still burrows under the skin nearly 22 years after its release, and the original production is heavy, crisp, and fresh. In “cleaning” up their sound, Rubin didn’t set out to make them more palatable, but rather give each perfectly timed note its due respect. There are few heavy metal albums in the mainstream that do more to prove the untouchable musicianship that exists in the genre. From death-obsessed beginning to blood-soaked end, Reign In Blood refuses to be denied its due respect with blistering solos, cord-ripping vocals, and a beats-per-minute count that set a standard for technical death metal for years to come.

What’s more is that Slayer didn’t just perform like heavy metal superhumans, they wrote perhaps the perfect extreme metal record. While the most memorable, covered, and referenced tracks are the opener “Angel of Death” and final song “Raining Blood”, these actually serve as bookends to the most incredible blast of anti-religion, death-dripping, gore-drenched musical violence that has ever been recorded.  From the chugging groove at the start of “Piece by Piece” to the insane catchiness of “Postmortem” and its vicious speed metal segue into the bloodstorm of “Raining Blood”, the album’s concise, thematically united sub-20-minute body is extreme metal purity: lyrics are spat at you, riffs are barely repeated, and there is not a single deviation from the ultimate purpose of aural destruction. There is no balance here.

“Necrophobic” is evil in audio form. It races by in little more than a minute and a half, and there is barely time to register everything that has happened. Araya’s faster-than-possible vocals and sickening screams are matched by King and Hanneman’s overlapping solos and abusive rhythm sounds, all while Lombardo and Araya hammer through an intense hardcore rhythm section barrage. It’s as stunning as thrash metal has ever been. “Altar of Sacrifice” doesn’t let up the evil sound but feels outright expansive next to the brutal brevity of “Necrophobic”. There is more space for dynamics with the move towards groove-laden moments which in turn paves the way for the insidious slow build of “Jesus Saves”. This momentary patience capitulates to a frantic verse riff and three solos which will melt your ears. Hanneman’s solo in particular feels like its tearing the skin from your flesh and flaying your unprotected body.

“Criminally Insane” is a creeper punctuated with big floor tom sounds from Lombardo, expressive solos, and astounding vocal delivery of the line, “I have yet only just begun/To take your fuckin’ lives”. It leads us to the most uncompromising portion of this mid-section. “Reborn” is an onslaught of ever-changing riffs, vicious drumming, and vocal delivery so fast and snarled it defies belief. To this day it makes me feel sick to listen to “Reborn”, but Slayer care not as they tear into the equally potent and vile “Epidemic”. There is 10 seconds of some sort of catchy, bouncy riff just after the 90-second mark which quickly descends into the chaos of Araya’s screams and garrotting wire solos, but for one brief moment on this album Slayer allow you a peek to the world above, before reminding you that there is no escape once you’ve gone to hell. The giant riffs and atmospherics of “Postmortem” follow and are matchless in their sinister yet addictive qualities, providing ample set-up for the crushing and iconic sounds of “Raining Blood”.

And while the harmonised guitars, thundering gallop of the drums, and pit-starting glory of both “Angel of Death” and “Raining Blood” are electrifying, what exists in between is in many ways the crowning achievement of Slayer’s career. It is rare for a collection of such unforgiving, focused, and frantic tracks to claim such widespread acclaim and acceptance, but by placing the body of this album between these towering monoliths of modern metal, Slayer were able to satisfy the hordes while simultaneously taking a surgeon’s knife to the burgeoning genre of thrash metal. What was left behind after they finished cutting was akin to Thomas Geminus’ engraved platesof a flayed man: concise, exact, brutal, and eternally alive in death. Slayer’s Reign In Blood is the perfect embodiment of thrash metal.

[Note: the 28 minute limit was exceeded, going some way to proving you can’t get anything done in the time it takes to listen to Reign In Blood.]     

52 Albums That Shaped My Life - #5

At The Gates – Slaughter of the Soul

(Earache, 1995)

Buy the album here

The second album in a row on the blog with “slaughter” in the title (c’mon metal bands…), and the second band in a row on the Bloodstock 2018 bill. Seeing At The Gates at Bloodstock in 2008, spinning round in a mud pit, is still one of my greatest music memories. While the new material is not up to the standard of Slaughter of the Soul, it’s amazing to see them live when it seemed like it would never happen. The appeal of this At The Gates release over its predecessors is the faultless melding of fun pop brevity and extreme metal sounds. While the melodic death metal movement that At The Gates are credited with spearheading was more palatable than the brutality of outright death from other parts of Sweden, Europe, and America, this is still heavy, heavy shit with some ferocious musicianship. What the band embraced in recording Slaughter of the Soul is that death metal, while messed up and brutal, should be infectious, fun, and fast. No song clocks in over 4 minutes in duration, and this 11-track album is barely 34 minutes long, which is to say that At The Gates obviously liked Iron Maiden, but probably preferred Slayer. While they have influenced metalcore bands like Killswitch Engage, let’s focus on all the sounds that make this album from 1995 stand up so well today.

And let’s start with the first sound: an electrical buzz as if a guitar was being plugged in to an amp. It builds anticipation that increases with each eerily slicing sound effect, culminating in a furious burst of energy. The classically clean production of melodic death metal is infused with thrash-inspired speed that barely relents over the following 30 minutes. “Blinded By Fear” sets the tone sonically and thematically with galloping riffs, smooth lead guitar details, piston drums, and the lyrical creation of hell on earth. At The Gates are preoccupied with a world they see turning on itself, cracking under self-inflicted pressure, and the first of many mentions of suicide is both literal and a metaphor for the self-harming behaviour of humanity as a whole. The pop sensibility I mentioned might seem unlikely at this point but, after the perfectly framed MTV video quality of the opener, title track “Slaughter of the Soul” highlights the band’s focus on immediacy. The opening riff pauses just long enough for vocalist Tomas Lindberg to shout “Go!” and kick everything off in an almost cheap, but undeniably effective, pit-starting moment. Lindberg repeats the trick with a call of “Do it!” just before the pitch perfect solo turning this track into a formidable pop death hit. Don’t be mistaken, the band still embrace the dense and distorted guitar sound, near-permanent double bass pedal, and frosty growl that gives At The Gates such intense atmospherics, but there is a focus on grabbing attention quickly and efficiently. The fact that the Björler brothers, responsible for most of the songwriting on this album, take these elements then do so much with them in such little time is what makes this one of the best heavy metal albums I’ve heard.

They went on to prove their prowess in this regard with several of their releases with The Haunted following the original break-up of At The Gates, but it’s on Slaughter of the Soul where you’ll find their most vital work. “Nausea” is like travelling down river in a barrel: filled with periods of disorienting buffeting and tranquil floating but always thrilling and potentially nauseating. “Need” ups the game, tossing its listeners furiously across the room for little more than 2 minutes. It’s like being accustomed to a gentle jog on the treadmill at the gym then signing up for a HIIT class: it’s hard and fast, but you get so much more done. It’s built on unforgivingly heavy drumming from Adrian Erlandsson, thrashy verse riffs, and typicaly expansive melodic death metal passages that come together to create a bleak yet uplifting plea to “lay your fears to rest”. With all the similes I’ve used in describing these two tracks though, I think the most fitting one for the album as a whole is that it feels like riding a galloping horse through a Mordor-like landscape, dodging arrows, slaying orcs, but every now and again you fall from the saddle, your foot caught in the stirrup, and you are dragged painfully over broken ground. But in a good way.

“Suicide Nation”, “World of Lies”, and “Unto Others” all do this. Each of these tracks has undeniable groove embedded in their opening moments, but the unbridled pace will have you wondering how to get back on your horse. The pop sensibility shows through again at the start of “Suicide Nation” with the shotgun cocking sound effect that ignites the song, but in “World of Lies” it is the album’s biggest and catchiest riff that steals the show. Coming at the perfect moment to reenergise a potentially battered listener for the final few songs, “World of Lies” is brimming with energy and a delightfully bouncing heavy sound that will keep your head banging all day long. “Unto Others” harks back to Terminal Spirit Disease more than any other track here, but its raspy viciousness is the perfect antidote to the giant super groove of “World of Lies” and sends the album in the direction of “Nausea”. On such a focused and brief album, this three-song passage is perhaps the most memorable.

And memorable is exactly what “Cold” and “Under a Serpent Sun”, my favourite tracks here, are. They are arguably the band’s collective shining moment, with sickeningly distorted leads (the solo at the 2-minute mark of “Cold” is insane), absorbing basslines, furious riffing, and some exceptional cymbal and snare work from Erlandsson all clamouring for attention. And they are without doubt Lindberg’s finest tracks as lyricist and vocalist. His delivery of the lines, “I feel my soul go cold/Only the dead are smiling” and “Stricken numb by fear I fall” are two of my favourite things in music and are eternally with me, while his ferocity on “Under a Serpent Sun” is unmatched anywhere in At The Gates’ work. And this is why Slaughter of the Soul means so much to me. That, while it is brutal, obsessed with suicide imagery, and punishing at times, it is so memorable that the songs just appear in my brain at random moments causing me to spit out lyrics like “Under a serpent sun we shall all live as one” while testing the ripeness of avocadoes in the supermarket, or banging my head to a silent beat while walking down a crowded street. All the members of At The Gates probably don’t realise this, but they’re my friends and always in my thoughts. Except Adrian Erlandsson… because I told him.

52 Albums That Shaped My Life - #6

Exhorder – Slaughter in the Vatican

(Roadrunner, 1990)

Buy the album wherever you can find it, because I can't

I had seen Exhorder T-shirts flying around long before I even knew what they sounded like.  The jagged letters in the logo suggested death metal influences, but the swampy yet razor sharp thrash I eventually heard was somehow heavier than that.  The frantic drumming only heightened the sheer fear generated by the vile and disgusting guitar sounds, and the pained and brilliantly arranged vocals surprised and slayed in equal measure.  While their sound doesn't easily associate them with the NOLA scene, the southern sludge influence of the band’s hometown can be heard throughout their debut album and lends a unique atmosphere to their groove-thrash.  The infamous Scott Burns was drafted in by Roadrunner to produce and, while the results are controversial for some, there is no doubting the intensity that the band captured with this melding of thrash, groove, and death.  Having reformed in 2008, the band have yet to release a follow-up to second album The Law, but with Slaughter in the Vatican setting the benchmark it is understandable they are taking their time to write killer material.

“Homicide” is nasty.  Plunging bass sounds that make you want to vomit, demonically twisted backing vocals, disgusting lyrics, and a guitar/drum assault that feels like GBH come together in a musical maelstrom of murder.  The groove kicks in during the second minute, but the damage is already done to a neck that will need warming up before listening to this beast.  That it’s only 3 minutes long is little help, a point proved again in another relentless blast of thrash in “Anal Lust”.  Snare ‘til you die in this two-minute wrecker gives you no time to think, but on repeat listens you will notice the skill of Kyle Thomas’ vocals.  Whether he’s going with the rhythm or against it, Thomas pulls out the perfect emphasis, pitch, pace, and intensity at every turn.  This is one of thrash metal's finest vocal performances.  Even when they slow things down on a track like “Desecrator”, the barks, growls, and screams all hit their marks, at times being spat out with such speed and precision that you can’t help but picture a torrent of spittle flying from his overworked mouth on every plosive.  “Desecrator”, while still brutal, allows Exhorder’s influence on thrash and groove metal in the 90s to shine through.  Everything the band are about is on display here.

“Exhorder” is more succinct.  No preamble here.  Just smashing you in the face from the outset.  The guitar tone and drumming are incredible and the cries of “Exhorder” are gleefully pained and catchy at the same time.  “Legions of Death” turns my prefrontal cortex to mush.  Bashing it against the inside of my skull has that affect.  Title track and album closer, “Slaughter in the Vatican” is perhaps the most patient composition, but the moment the band lose that patience is breath-taking.  Around the 1’40” mark, after a building groove, it sounds like their ADHD has driven them spare.  The next 5 minutes has them lurching back and forth between sickened grooves and brutalised blasts of thrash punctuated by Thomas’ hurling of the words, “If the father of the church is to lead and teach you/Then why doesn't he follow the rules?/Imitate the son of man and live with the poor/Instead of fearing him while he's on tour”.  But it’s the first song rather than the last that leaves its mark on the listener.  Every time I listen to opening track “Death in Vain” I think that there can’t be a better track than this on the record.  Following a suspiciously Sepultura-esque atmospheric sound effect, Exhorder unleash an album’s worth of energy in the following 4 minutes of anti-war proselytising.  It’s a petrifying whirlwind of sludge-thrash riffing, pounding snare, and gnarled vocals crowned with the lyrics, “Cause of death was never confirmed/Did he really die?/Get permission from the state/To save his precious life”. 

It’s an album that could send its fans in the direction of Obituary, Pantera, Anthrax, Eyehategod, or Sepultura, but I guarantee they will always return to Slaughter in the Vatican.  This is an album that should have been a touchstone for the thrash generation, but somehow got stuck in the sinking mud of the early 90s near-death of the genre.  Once metal fans had pulled themselves free of that mud they were free to dive back in to the swamp with Exhorder and we’ve seen a rejuvenation in the genre fuelled by old and new bands alike.  And that’s what Exhorder did for me as a music fan: reminded me how vicious, vital, and different thrash can be and brought me back to my favourite musical genre.      

52 Albums That Shaped My Life - #13

Death – Symbolic

(Roadrunner, 1995)

Symbolic is not Death’s best album.  Human and Leprosy are essential listening, but as an ultra-infectious starting point for new fans, there is no better than Symbolic.  Filled with viciously grooving hooks, frenetic galloping passages, 80s and 90s video game riffing, and customarily excellent musicianship, this record is a smorgasbord of Death sounds.  It doesn’t have the cohesiveness or invention of Human, but it crams into 50 minutes just about everything you could want to know and feel about this band.  Symbolic was my gateway to the phenomenal and genre-defining work of Death, and as such has shaped my musical life as much as any other extreme metal album.

Line-up changes had become an accepted part of Death’s career, with only the late Chuck Schuldiner being a constant in their existence, and their 1995 release was no exception.  Bobby Koelble and Kenny Conlon would make their only recorded appearance with the band, while Gene “Atomic Clock” Hoglan would make his second and final album with Chuck before continuing his unmatched drumming tour of heavy music.  With the exception of Paul Masvidal and Sean Reinert’s influence on Human, Death was really Chuck Schuldiner and the Death Boys from the outset, and that fact shines through on this record.  Symbolic feels as though Chuck is allowing his writing to flow naturally, fusing the more exploratory styles of Human and Individual Thought Patterns with the instant catchiness of Leprosy and allowing himself more fun through his music.  There is a 90s video game quality to the whole affair.  In songs like “Without Judgement” I hear Makoto Tomozawa’s work on Megaman X, but the album’s frenetic riffing, rampant solos, and insane drumming continually remind me of playing Smash TV on the SNES or Xenon 2 on PC.  I feel like I’m dodging a hail of laser bullets, spinning in circles trying to avoid obstacles or collect power-ups, and panicking every time more baddies enter the fray.  It’s a dizzying experience of dense riffs, crystal clear solos, military precision drumming, and beautiful death metal vocals.

“Crystal Mountain” might be the best example of the immediacy of Chuck’s approach on this album.  Opening on a galloping riff, supported by Hoglan’s exquisite double bass control and overlaid with echoing lead guitar accents, this track is about as cheesy and catchy as extreme metal gets, with even a Spanish guitar somehow infiltrating the final moments.  It was the first Death track I ever heard and convinced me in mere seconds that I would be buying this album.  Once purchased, “Without Judgement” continued in this vein with its video game initial riff leading to more tightly packed verse guitars and frenetically paced choruses.  The speed and pitch perfect delivery seems to physically pick you up and spin you round, while Chuck’s vocals and lyrics provide the thoughtful counterpoint to this loss of corporeal control.  His drawn out vowels and deliberate pacing highlight his lyrical plea for a society and its people to be more open-minded, and to eschew over-simplification of others’ issues.

And I have to be careful not to oversimplify what Death have done on this record.  While it is more accessible than its two immediate predecessors, there is interesting complexity at every turn.  From Chuck’s slightly offbeat vocal on “Zero Tolerance” to the eight minutes of structural and pacing experimentation of “Perennial Quest”, via the choppy guitars and wild mid-section solos of “Empty Words”, this album is frequently surprising and rewards repeat listens.  The grooving intro of album opener “Symbolic” belies the chopping riffs, psychedelic sci-fi-inspired solos, and unexpected vocal rhythms that follow.  At times the song is travelling so fast, and there is so much density of sound, that the mind almost can’t keep up.  Adrenaline starts to flow in response to this barrage, and each Chuck growl stands to attention the hair on your neck and arms.  This is a feeling that doesn’t let up through album highlights “Empty Words”, “Sacred Serenity”, “1,000 Eyes”, and “Without Judgement”, each contributing to the album’s astounding middle act, and leaving listeners gasping for more.

Every time a Symbolic track pops up on shuffle, it’s time to stop what I’m doing, pay attention, and thrash my head relentlessly.  Every song is irresistible, the production is perfect, and the lyrics and vocals challenge any preconceptions of death metal.  That feeling of being thrown into a physical maelstrom while being intellectually stimulated is rare in music and is the reason that Death are so iconic.  To Chuck’s credit, Symbolic retains these qualities while somehow managing to incorporate an almost pop music level of catchiness.  This is death metal for those who enjoy a little life with their death.

52 Albums That Shaped My Life - #18

Entombed – Wolverine Blues

(Earache, 1993)

Buy the album here

With one demon grunt my musical life was changed.  A grizzly bear of a riff and thumping drums suddenly exploded then unexpectedly stopped.  A primal roar burst forth, and the music continued on its destructive path.  The moment was over in four seconds, but it is still one of the most memorable in my listening experiences.  The opening of “Demon” tells you everything you need to know about Entombed’s objective on Wolverine Blues: simple, direct, instinctive, heavy, and hell, even anti-intellectual.  This album is more concerned with making your guts vibrate than firing synapses, more focused on gigantic power chord riffing than duelling solos and Classical-inspired structures, and would rather you fear it than respect it.  Where Death, Carcass, and the emerging death metal mainstream began taking a surgically exact approach to their music, Entombed decided to down tune, fuzz out, and ride a Pantera-inspired wave of groove metal success.  Wolverine Blues has been credited with birthing the sub-genre of “Death ‘n’ Roll”, and in doing so it opened the door for hard rock and heavy metal fans to work their way backward to the oft intimidating world of death metal.  While the album sounds like it wants to kick you in the face, it is actually politely opening doors for you.  How nice of it.

“Demon” is the centrepiece.  It is brash, violent, and lyrically vacuous, but at its pounding heart it only wants to make you stomp your feet and bang your head.  The immediacy of the riffs, the pauses, the wild yells all serve that singular purpose.  The direct approach is maintained by “Full of Hell”, with lyrical insights along the lines of, “I'm organized chaos but don't call me stupid I'm insane”, and “Hollowman” with its punchy riffs and drunken-mate vocals.  The whole thing clocks in at around thirty-five minutes of groove-laden, mid-pace riffs, blues-tinged solos, fat drums, and fatter vocals, but there’s an argument to be made that it should have been even shorter.  While the riffs are always catchy and there is never a "bad" song, the first four tracks do the job of the whole album in less than half the time.  Opener “Eyemaster” is the most musically interesting on the album.  Combining the groovier “death ‘n’ roll” sound with the faster old school death of their first two albums and throwing in some killer solos, the song stands head and shoulders above the rest.  The buzzsaw guitar sound and syncopated riffs on “Rotten Soil” are dirty and broken in the best way, and clearly show the band’s influence on Bloodbath, while title track “Wolverine Blues” is a sludgy monster that balances the thrashier tracks it follows.  Rounded off by “Demon”, Wolverine Blues could have been one of the most legendary EPs of all time.

It may not have aged as well as its Stockholm Sound defining predecessors Left Hand Path and Clandestine, but this album’s influence on me is stronger.  By giving my fearful little mind enough groove to hang on to, family friendly satanic imagery, and that rounded sound of mainstream metal, this album brought me slowly and gently into the death metal fold.  Nuzzling in its big, furry arms I was cradled into the midst of earlier Entombed, Autopsy, and Deicide, but never felt alone or exposed.  It was like having a big brother to take you to the pub for the first time, but this pub was serving pints of blood in hollowed out skulls. you paid with your everlasting devotion, and your brother was a viking warrior.  Wolverine Blues will always be my big metal brother, even if he’s a little past it these days.      

52 Albums That Shaped My Life - #22

Meshuggah – Catch Thirtythree

(Nuclear Blast, 2005)

Buy the album here

Catch Thirtythree is a mind-numbing, obstinate, confusing brute.  It’s wilfully bleak, esoteric, repetitive, violent, and it has no concern for your sanity or wellbeing.  Choosing to listen to Catch Thirtythree is like choosing to eat granite for dinner, washing it down with acid, then lying back on a bed of nails to experience the pain in your gut.  Everybody knows you don’t digest well lying down.  Possibly due to the burning darkness inside me, this album instantly jumped inside my brain and has refused to leave ever since.  This appears to be the case for many others as well.  Meshuggah’s popularity/ubiquity (it’s hard to tell) in metal steadily grew with this and next record, Obzen.  Trying to understand why is the purpose of this blog post.

Ostensibly set out as a single suite concept album, the track names that make up the whole piece are little more than signposts along this bizarre journey.  If a listener approaches this album expecting hooks, choruses, or even “songs”, they may very well quit before the end.  Meshuggah give you the bare minimum with which to hold on, pulling out long passages of repetitive “djent” guitar rhythms or eerie atmospheric tracks in between moments of pummelling heaviness which are relieving in their relative catchiness.  The drums are all programmed from samples of Tomas Haake’s actual drumming, and it lends the whole album a punishingly robotic feel.  This is balanced by the sheer demonic power of Jens Kidman’s death growl which is varied, dynamic, and impassioned.  The earth-shattering bass sound on this album doesn’t make it a warmer experience, but definitely contributes to the intimidating size of the sound.  All told, Meshuggah have better albums with better songs on them.

But there is something perspective-altering about the determined and brutal delivery of this concept.  There is a line that can be drawn from the first note through the entire piece to its culmination, around which Meshuggah have created never-ending variations on a theme.  The music never strays from its ultimate mission to surreptitiously pull the listener in to this unforgiving world of paradoxes, so that as the final act of this piece (represented by “Shed”, “Personae Non Gratae”, “Dehumanization”, and “Sum”) plays we are no longer aware of how we got here or why we stayed.  Nothing is what it seems: track beginnings and ends are mostly indistinguishable; dynamics seem to build to imminent catharsis before being discarded unfulfilled; Jens Kidman’s anger is more existential struggle than angst or rebellion; even the drums don’t “exist”. 

Repeated rhythms cast a spell over your mind, pulling you deeper than you could ever expect to go with such unwelcoming music.  It’s like being in a darkened room with a green laser blasting right in to your eye, yet you can’t look away, can’t even turn your head.  Trying to draw out highlights from such an experience is difficult, but the surging pace and riff of the first three tracks, “Autonomy Lost”, “Imprint of the Un-Saved”, and “Disenchantment” are breath-taking, while the sickening breakdown feel of “The Paradoxical Spiral”, “Re-inanimate”, and “Entrapment” is insanely addictive.  The monstrous sounds and robotic soliloquy of “Mind’s Mirrors” are the hinging point of the whole record, before Meshuggah launch themselves head-first in to the hellish explosion of “In Death – Is Life”.  The anticipation alone is enough to survive on, but the song itself is a brilliant standalone track that would not be out of place on Chaosphere.  The protracted hammering of “In Death – Is Death” is a masterwork of controlled dynamics and perfectly sets up the more immediate final act that I discussed above.  But I don’t think that “how good any of the songs is” has anything to do with why I like this album so much.  It’s about its purity of vision.  It’s about the fact that Meshuggah do not care what you expect, or what the rules are.  It’s about having something completely new.  Even if it is sick, disgusting, and completely messed up.  

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52 Albums That Shaped My Life - #25

Cynic – Traced In Air

(Season of Mist, 2008)

Buy the album here

I can’t remember first noticing Cynic or even hearing them for the first time, but with Traced In Air I have reason to never forget them.  Existing somewhere in the space formed by an equilateral triangle between Tool, Mars Volta, and Gorguts, Cynic are sensually lush, at times complex, and powerfully melodic.  Traced In Air is equally effective patiently building sparse soundscapes or dynamically layering instrumentation in self-propelled, existential, proto-death prog.  It’s an album that completely changed my understanding of heavy music, the place of death metal style vocals in other settings, and the conceptual limits of lyrics in heavy music.

“The Unknown Guest” is a perfect example.  Rolling in on the faded-in, reborn rhythms of “Integral Birth”, laced with Sanskrit mantras, backed by vicious death growls, and bearing beautiful, transitional passages of delicate light in amongst the tightly packed riffing and fill-heavy drumlines of the verses, “The Unknown Guest” takes us on an exploration of how spiritual discovery can reinvigorate physical life.  “Adam’s Murmur” introduces yet more stylistic experimentation with near robotic vocals that contrast the chakras-inspired contemplation of man’s creation.  It’s a bold decision to express these ideas in such “synthetic” ways, but the delicacy of the delivery along with the balancing earthiness of the backing vocal allows the song to hit its mark.  “King of Those Who Know” also balances these synthetic sounds with clean guitar tones and death growls to produce an equally vicious and soothing take on spiritual awareness.  Stretches of layered vocals, rolling double bass drumming, and skilfully picked riffs pack the idea-filled verses and choruses to the brim in order that the near-empty bridge sections and lulls are near-necessitated moments of quiet contemplation.  The thoughts inspired by this music come thick and fast but Cynic also want to provide you with the space and time to consider how you’ve received them and how you might turn them back out in to the world.

Discussing individual tracks is difficult though as the enduring image of this record is of a musically and thematically unified concept of human existence deftly and confidently scrawled, like the light reaching from star to star in a night sky.  Much like Blast Tyrant from last week’s post, this is music that will have your head in the clouds, feeling weightless, carried away, and disappointed to have to come back down.  The light musical touch combined with the intellectual weight of centuries old philosophical thought creates a welcoming yet challenging expression of humanity’s place in the cosmos.  It simultaneously makes humanity seem insignificant in the scope of the universe yet intensely meaningful and unique.  Songs like “Adam’s Murmur” and “Evolutionary Sleeper” put contemporary humanity on a gigantic spectrum of evolutionary science while also acknowledging the philosophical and existential impact of spirituality and religious beliefs in our creation.  In delivering this balanced message, Cynic explore the full extent of their skills as musicians.  Each song is crafted from a diverse palette where little seems off limits.  Vocal distortion is frequently used alongside noteworthy guitar pedal combinations to create incredible audio effects that somehow feel organic and electronic at the same time, like the firing of synapses.  Paul Masvidal and Tymon Kruidenier trade clean vocals and death growls, and Amy Correia provides moments of gentle, background melody, while the guitars skilfully switch from delicate untouched tones to distorted metal brutality.  The rhythm duo of Sean Reinert and Sean Malone pack a lot of work in to short passages, providing attention-grabbing rumbling foundations, while also delicately accenting the quieter moments. 

Two of these quieter moments bookend the entire album.  “Nunc Fluens” and “Nunc Stans” are two interpretations of existence and the “eternal”: the former is the flow of time and there being no beginning or end, the latter understands that all things are now and that there is no past or future.  While Cynic may have intended something greater or more specifically spiritual with this structure, for me Traced In Air is a beautiful reminder of how we should listen to and experience music.  Much like the yoga that seems to have inspired “The Space for This”, the record is about channelling our focus, filtering out distractions, and giving our all to what we are experiencing now.  By giving ourselves completely to the moment, to the music, to the experience, we are closer to ourselves, more open to other possibilities, and ready to accept ideas that challenge our beliefs.  Heavy metal might not seem like the most likely place for this line of thought, but in embracing spirituality, science, simplicity, complexity, melody, and brutality Cynic have crafted an album that is all things at once, while somehow more focused than most other music.  Traced In Air teaches us that music can surprise, usurp established norms, and live on in how we approach and understand our existence. 

52 Albums That Shaped My Life - #29

Gojira – From Mars to Sirius

(Listenable Records, 2005)

Buy the album here

Godzilla is a gigantic monster.  Whales are huge mammals.  The distance from Mars to Sirius is unimaginably great.  Gojira somehow manages to make sounds that seem larger than all these things.  Theirs is a crushingly heavy yet uplifting sound that holds a contemplative beauty in its brutality.  From Mars to Sirius is an album that will make you feel like a colossus astride the globe, Joe Duplantier’s roars flowing through your veins, but invigorated by a protective sense of belonging to its creatures, resources, and potential.  The heaviness, the deep growled and screamed vocals, the death metal-inspired drums, and thick, equal parts doom/death guitars place Gojira as one of the more extreme bands in mainstream heavy metal.  While heavy metal has often dealt with feelings of isolation, Gojira want us to see that we’re all part of the same ecology, and that we all have a part to play in keeping it alive… even if their music is devastating to all that stand in its path.

Extreme metal tends to engender assumptions.  These can range from the obvious stereotype of thuggish guys peddling mindless noise, to the belief that death metal vocals can be about nothing other than violence.  And while there are plenty of bands throwing their hands high in the air to proudly lay claim to those stereotypes, Gojira show us the other side of extreme music where heaviness, aggression, and loudness are about caring deeply for something, bringing people together, and hoping to be a force for positive change.  In fact, Gojira are at their most effective when their heaviness is more natural or seemingly incidental, as if just an extension of their feelings on the subject.  The Way of all Flesh, the follow up to From Mars..., struggles to produce the same emotional connection simply because it is hitting its listeners too hard.  But here we have incredible moments of heaviness on “From The Sky”, “Where Dragons Dwell”, and “Flying Whales” that never overstep, never impede your emotional connection, and never cease the spine tingling feeling that inspires you to hug everyone and simultaneously kick holes in the wall.  Gojira do what all good heavy metal bands should do: bludgeon you around the ears and make you smile about it.

For many, From Mars… would have been their first Gojira listening experience, but looking back, it’s incredible to note how much of a leap forward in songwriting, performance, and production the album represents.  While the moments of djent-inspired complexity and bruising vocals are all present on their earlier albums, they lack the individuality and ear for hooks and doom heaviness that allows them to stand apart on this and later albums.  The opening track “Ocean Planet” introduces the running theme of the album with gentle whale song, and instantly displays a newfound confidence in their unique identity with riffs built around brutal repeated breakdowns and pinched harmonics, and lyrics preoccupied with the interweaving of nature and human consciousness.  “Backbone” does similar work with a more free-flowing, high tempo approach, blastbeats, expansive guitar sounds, and extended vocal growls.  It’s an attention-grabbing opening salvo filled with diverse sounds, textures, and emotions.  Oddly, having grown up on 90s metal like Machine Head and Fear Factory, Gojira give me a little of everything I’m looking for from heavy music: big guitar sounds, ferocious vocals, double bass pedal action, and loads of pinched harmonics, but with enough hook and melody for me to latch on to.  The main difference being that Gojira wrap it up in the theme of nature and spirituality, so while they’re making you feel like a mean, bad-ass… you’re a caring, mean, bad-ass.

Back-to-back tracks “From Mars” and “To Sirius” take us on an abbreviated journey from the former’s gentle, whispered prelude to the enormous, adrenaline-pumping genius of the latter’s opening riff.  Gojira’s ability to take a simple riff and make it feel epic with the infusion of Mario Duplantier’s intense double-bass led drumming, and the elongated vowels of brother Joe’s death vocals is unmatched in metal right now.  At times Joe Duplantier’s cries are like sheet lightning flashing across the sky, leaving only the memory of its existence before the thunder and depth of his death growl comes to remind you of its power.  “The Heaviest Matter in the Universe” and “Global Warming” are the high points of an album that has not a single bad song.  The former is a pit-starting, thrash-death masterpiece that briefly toys with being too heavy before punishing you with the catchiest song about mental and spiritual anguish you’re likely to hear.  The latter closes out the album with a beautiful, diverse, and rich prog-death culmination of the thematic threads introduced with “Ocean Planet”.  Gojira wear their hearts on their sleeves here, unafraid to proclaim a sense of powerlessness in the face of human arrogance and wastefulness:

We are taking everything for granted
I don't think we should do this now
And when I see the smoke all around
I feel like I'm not

From humankind down there
I feel like glaciers are my eyes
And mountains are my head
My heart is ocean
And I feel all alone
Because everybody's wrong

But they are a positive and forward-thinking group so never let go of hope:

I had this dream, our planet surviving
The guiding stars always growing
And all the worlds
The fates all the countries
They're all rebuilding at the same time
I never fell and always believed in
We could evolve and get older
Open your eyes and let all this flow
Now see a new hope is growing inside

From Mars… is a perfect unit.  Nothing stands out too far, there is nothing that doesn’t belong.  It is focused and aggressive, but confident enough to explore and experiment.  It is unendingly catchy, but has enough depth to have you interested in new ways on every return.  Gojira have, in making an album about the dangers the earth faces, channelled their frustration, hopes, and desires into a timeless piece of music.  It has all the sonic qualities that suggest it will age well, and, even 12 years on, it is as vibrant and modern as it was on its release.  I hope, as I imagine the band do, that the album’s warnings of irreversible damage to the planet don’t prove to be as timeless as I think the music itself will.  Let the warnings be heard.

52 Albums That Shaped My Life - #37

Opeth – Deliverance

(Music For Nations, 2001)

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Opeth existed at the crossroads between death metal, folk music, prog, and pure evil.* It is easy to imagine Mikael Åkerfeldt, primary songwriter for Opeth and amusing bloke, standing at such a crossroads and signing a contract with the devil to assign him unmatched talents in this field.  The crossroads would have been isolated in a barren landscape, the sole tree, grand yet lifeless, hanging over the road as if waiting to hang a victim.  As the grey clouds closed in, masking any remaining light, the devil would have approached to whisper hell in your ear. 

That’s what listening to Opeth is like: gothic horror in which the lightness of touch only intensifies the darkness of the subject matter.  This is true for all of Opeth’s truly great albums, My Arms, Your Hearse (1998), Still Life (1999), Blackwater Park (2001), and Deliverance.  This was the Opeth album that found me first, and opened my mind to the possibility of brutally heavy death metal that soothes with acoustic guitar, wandering passages of musical exploration, and satanic lullabies.  Ironically, this is Opeth’s heaviest album, and deliberately so, with Damnation being released as a companion album only months after Deliverance to fully explore the “clean” side of Opeth’s music, and further cement Åkerfeldt’s relationship with Pavement maestro, Steve Wilson.  Approaching the Deliverance/Damnation project as a double album allowed Opeth the freedom to intensify and even exaggerate their characteristics on each record, and produce two distilled versions of what the band had become.  Deliverance is concentrated evil.

You can feel the intent on first track, “Wreath”, with its scarily abrasive sound and pitch-black death growl.  There is no warning here.  “Wreath” lurches out with razor sharp guitars and Lopez’s incredible drumming, precisely balancing double bass speed with restrained snare and cymbal use, and propels the listener into the black hail that is Mikael    

Åkerfeldt’s vocal: “Falling inside again / The nightmare always the same”.  The title track rides in on building waves of guitar punctuated by that solid snare, only to give way to a riff that would have long hair in metal venues worldwide spinning in unison supported by Lopez’s sustained and perfectly produced double bass pedal sound.  “Deliverance” gives the listener little glimpses of respite with a softer overall guitar sound than “Wreath”, experimental passages, gently delivered melodic vocals, and thoughtful lead guitar colour.  Coming in at over 13 minutes, alternating dark and light, Åkerfeldt’s repeated demonic delivery of the line “all over now”, the subtle use of keys, and ending on the album’s signature, and seemingly never-ending, drum beat, this song is the definition of prog death. 

The punishing tension that is built during this epic is dispersed by the softness of the album’s second act.  In “A Fair Judgement” and “For Absent Friends” we learn that even when writing a purposefully heavy album Opeth are unafraid to take their listeners on long, melodic journeys.  Åkerfeldt’s forlorn tone on the former is beautiful, enhanced by delicate rhyming couplets, and allows the lengthy traded solos to stand out fully, while in the latter Opeth simply let the gentle tones of the guitars do the talking.  It’s the last moment of objective beauty that this album will offer you. 

The opening of “Master’s Apprentice” does away with the complexity, the play of light and dark, the beauty, and opts for a giant metal riff and punishing vocals.  It’s an explosive moment on the album that will break your neck and your larynx.  Even the meandering and expressive bridge section later in the song is rudely interrupted by that unmistakable growl and provides only minor reprieve during the closing act.  In the album closer “By the Pain I See in Others” the quiet moments seem intent on simply making the heavier sounds more punishing, every moment of relaxation more and more brief, every false end to the song both difficult to endure and invigorating, like scaling gruelling, false peaks on a Scottish mountain but be provided with an ever more stunning view with each one.  Despite both songs in this final act exceeding 10 minutes, and incorporating multiple approaches to music and wide-ranging instrumentation, they comprise the most direct work Opeth had produced since “Demon of the Fall” and are a fitting finale to their heaviest album.

Opeth’s heaviness sounds natural, as if it had walked out of Scandinavian forests in to your ears, and blends seamlessly with their progressive, gothic, and folk elements.  It is important to acknowledge, however, that it is not natural, and that Åkerfeldt’s stellar songwriting, lyrical imagination, and awareness of tone make this blend work.  He is decidedly unnatural.  Other bands have tried to do what Opeth do, but none have managed to so perfectly occupy all these spaces at once without ever seeming out of place or forced.  It seems to me that Åkerfeldt’s contract with the devil worked out well.  Damnation may await his soul, but at least we’ll always have Deliverance.           

*They still exist, it’s just they’re pretty much 70s prog now.

52 Albums That Shaped My Life - #39

Bloodbath – Resurrection Through Carnage

(Century Media, 2002)

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Selecting a Bloodbath album to represent the early Swedish death metal sound in this list is sort of like claiming Tarantino as my favourite director… not a bad or wrong selection necessarily, but it’s a choice that suggests I need to do a little more cultural exploration.  While Tarantino built a career taking influence or directly lifting from classic Westerns, martial arts films, and b-movies, Bloodbath formed as a side project to pay homage to their favourite death metal bands.  And like many Tarantino fans and his filmic forbears, Bloodbath, and this album in particular, were a starting point for me with proper death metal music.  They will forever have my gratitude for introducing me to Entombed, Dismember, and, less directly, Death.  But also for making a killer death metal album in its own right.  Resurrection Through Carnage brings back your favourite buzzsaw guitar sound from the 80s and early 90s and really makes it sound like they kicked in their amps before they recorded it.  Part of the enduring appeal of this album is the DIY feel it has throughout: at times the drums are like damp towels, and there are even hints that a drum machine was used in places; while the guitars sound like your mate is playing in the middle of the room with the busted old amp he bought second hand from a car boot sale.  But it never detracts from how good these songs are.  What stands out is the song-writing ability this band has, initially evidenced by their debut EP Breeding Death, and the unreal death metal growl of Opeth frontman, Mikael Åkerfeldt. 

As that guitar buzz fades in on opener “Ways To The Grave” you’d be forgiven for thinking that this album might not be up to much, but by the end of the song your eyes will be bloodshot from smashing your brains on the inside of your skull and pointlessly trying to imitate Åkerfeldt’s vocals.  They bring rookie levels of energy to every song but couple it with veteran song-writing experience and an intimate knowledge of the genre to which they’re paying homage.  “So You Die” is a blunt force trauma with an atmospheric bridge and an awesome vomit-inducing chorus riff.  It sounds like it influenced the creation of Dethklok more than any other band, and carries that same joyous love for gory and violent lyrics that those cartoon death metallers represent.  The first minute of “Mass Strangulation” sounds like one guy made it on his computer of an evening, but is undeniably catchy, and is followed by an incredible breakdown riff, and one of Åkerfeldt’s finest moments, rhyming everything he possibly could with “strangulation”.

It’s a surprisingly varied but inevitably violent three track opening that sets up the three track middle passage that really shows off what Bloodbath can do.  “Death Delirium”, the longest song on the record, and “The Soulcollector” open up more experimentation with tempo and atmosphere while building a solid base around vicious verse riffs.  In both, Anders Nyström’s lead guitar accents really push Bloodbath’s sound to the next level.  But the memory of those songs is kicked in the skull and left to die by the opening riff of “Buried by the Dead”.  This song is stacked with amazing riffs, brutal vocals, and is the insanely enjoyable centrepiece of this buzzing and horrific album. 

With more listens though, it’s the quality of the album’s final four tracks that really stands out.  These are dark and focused death metal songs that establish Bloodbath’s strong identity, independent of the influences they so clearly admire.  “Bathe In Blood” is a flurry of snare-driven riffing, galloping choruses, and double kick drum rumbling that will have the most sedate listener flailing wildly.  “Trail of Insects” means you harm.  The opening verse is cruel and dark, and you will rejoice at the catchy morbidity of the chorus:

Crucified

A trail of insects down your spine

Vermin inside you

Control you

Devour you

Funeral

My sickening mind made you dissolve

Vermin inside you

They move you

Devour you

“Like Fire” is the heaviest song on the album with a thick, chugging riff working alongside the double kick drum, and perfect death vocals.  The chorus is one of Bloodbath’s best, perfectly displaying their ability to combine theatrical horror with what feels like real malevolence:

And when they dream, that’s when my spirit arise

And when they scream, a little part of them dies

I find my way into the minds of the weak

They are led astray, it’s now my path they seek

It’s the perfect set up for the final track, “Cry My Name”, with its atmospheric opening riff that conjures equally images of The Phantom of the Opera and The Exorcist.  Bloodbath’s evil lyrics are all the more enjoyable when it’s exaggerated horror backed by almost pantomime villainy:

I steal your soul

And carve a hole

Right where your heart once used to be

I watch you die. I hear you cry

It fills my soul with such delight

“Cry My Name” leaves me feeling like the band have genuinely attempted to steal my soul when, in fact, it was the sound of early Swedish death metal they stole.  But the members of Bloodbath brought such song writing skill and innovation to the genre years after it had faded, that perceptions of their originality are of no consequence.  This is classic death metal.  Sure, if you really want that authentic sound you can pick up Left Hand Path by Entombed, but you’d be missing out on gleefully macabre, and indulgently evil death metal.  And, let’s be honest, none of us really wishes Reservoir Dogs was never made.

52 Albums That Shaped My Life - #40

Sepultura – Arise

(Roadrunner, 1991)

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Scott Burns and Morrisound Recording are responsible for the production of what seems like 50% of classic Floridian death metal.  Just as examples, Death's Leprosy, Obituary's swamp-crawling birth in Slowly We Rot, and the joyous fun of Eaten Back to Life before Cannibal Corpse became too focused on being the band with the biggest circle pits, were all brought to us by this inimitable pairing – their tiny enclave in Tampa was death metal's haven.  However, Burns and Morrisound also worked together in 1990 on the thrash metal outburst of Exhorder's Slaughter In The Vatican, an overlooked album that has always dragged behind it rumours of disagreements over the sound and the hiring of Burns as producer for a sludgy thrash band from New Orleans.  This didn't deter Roadrunner or Sepultura in teaming up with the now notorious producer and his famous recording home.  In 1991 they were responsible for the “big budget” return of Brazil's biggest band, and their intimidating combination of thrash and death metal.  Having also worked on Sepultura's breakout album, Beneath The Remains, in 1988, the stakes were high for band and producer alike.  For Sepultura there is a suggestion that they played it safe by sticking to the style they formed in the making of the previous record, but it's a hollow criticism in the face of such charged, focused, and aggressive music.

Igor and Max Cavalera seem to bring an intensity to the heavy music they make that distils all elements to their purest form.  Andreas Kisser is a great metal guitarist with a unique solo style and keen ear for dynamics and texture, perfectly complementing the top-string-battering, rhythmic barrage of Max, and the elite drumming of Igor.  Hints of the sound that would make them known worldwide on their next two albums popped up in “Altered States”, and there is a certain industrial sound that prefaces Max’s intense side-project Nailbomb, but otherwise this album just tears at you with sharp riffs, non-stop true percussion from Igor, larynx-wrecking vocals, and wild solos.

There’s no better place to start than the title track.  The intro is grim and frightening like the music from some racially insensitive voodoo zombie horror from the 70s, but the explosion of drums and guitars that follows is more demon-summoning than necromancing.  That unforgettable first riff with its angled jabs conjures real malevolence while the drumming is the scrambling of hell-bound souls sent south of heaven by that sharp, heavy snare.  Those souls seem to escape through Max’s layered vocals which climb over one another to deliver their rites.  Max’s growl is a polyp-scraping bark which opts for intensity over range, and demands its listener arise in the political and cultural apocalypse that would come to inform much of Sepultura’s output.  It’s an irresistible call in this three-minute thrash-death attack.  “Dead Embryonic Cells”, however, takes us into groovier Sepultura territory with little glimpses of their breakthrough in to the mainstream on next album, Chaos A.D.  A more textured riffscape gives shape to this medium paced metal groove, with double bass drum-infused injections of speed retaining that thrash feel.  Just after the three minute mark, Kisser pierces the ears with a squealing and electrifying solo which drops us in to a bridge section breakdown with gigantic power chords, heavy drums, and harmonising guitars.  While “Arise” is a neck-jarring attack, “Dead Embryonic Cells” insists that you should let your head move and find that groove.

There are more suggestions of what was to come on Chaos A.D. and Roots in “Altered State” and “Under Seige (Regnum Irae)” with Brazilian tribal drumming and acoustic guitar intros respectively.  What marks them out from later work is the Scott Burns influence: the thick death rhythm guitar; solos riding high in the mix, and a drum sound that seeks to dominate as much as support.  “Altered State” is incredible; easily and ceaselessly transitioning from thrash assault to lead guitar bridge sections to foreboding drum breakdown, it’s a brilliant example of everything that Sepultura can do.  From the moment Kisser lets his solo trail off just after the four minute mark the song becomes an adventure of time changes, riffs, beautiful clean guitar woodles, and inspirational drumming.  It sits right at the heart of this album and most keenly identifies the Sepultura sound.  Alongside the lowdown chug of “Desperate Cry” and the ferocious, heart-pounding “Subtraction” (a fine example of Max’s abilities to add vowels to anything, a la “mass hipponosis”), these songs form the thick and unmoving spine of this record.

The album closes out with the infectious grooves of “Meaningless Movement” and the neck-breaking thrash-death of “Infected Voice”.  The former has some of the most memorable riffs on the album, and one of my favourite Max vocal deliveries on “words I caaaannot uuuuunderstand”, ironically enunciated in such a way that they are the most easily understood words on the album.  The latter harks back to the opening track with blistering riffing and drumming making even “Arise” seem tame.  While it doesn’t have the quality of hook and atmosphere of the title track, it’s a fitting close to an album that melds both ends of the extreme metal decade of the 80s. 

And that’s why this album is here for me.  While I was growing up, the sounds of Metallica and Anthrax were safe enough for me to rebel without ever feeling like I was getting in to dark territory that I didn’t understand.  Sepultura, Scott Burns, Morrisound, and Roadrunner bridged that gap and brought a whole new sub-genre in to my world.  Though I spent a lot of time explaining to people that Roots wasn’t death metal, Sepultura took those influences and opened them up to me and others while forging their unquestionably unique identity.

52 Albums That Shaped My Life - #47

Carcass – Heartwork

(Earache Records, 1993)

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This was the beginning of the end. Carcass, previously described as a grindcore band, had produced an album that thrust them in to the MTV mainstream. For many fans at the time, it marked a point of no return for the band: an opinion proven both true and untrue. Heartwork showed the simultaneously gritty and groovy sound that Carcass could accomplish, and had Columbia Records pushing for big money success on their follow-up, the oft-derided Swansong. As the title of this new album may have suggested, the band did not stay together, or with the record label, even long enough to tour that material. Ironically it is the earlier Heartwork's brilliance that precipitated their demise, but also cemented their status as legends of British death metal, and paved the way for their successful return to recording with 2012's well received, Surgical Steel.

The artwork of Heartwork is the visual embodiment of the sonic balance between underground grind/death and traditional rock that Carcass found here. The most widely known of H.R. Giger's works are disturbing blends of biomechanical eroticism and Freudian castration fears. Art as dark and horrific as his seldom finds widespread acceptance or appreciation, but with the success of the Alien film franchise his xenomorph and face hugger designs entered the mainstream and came to define the science fiction and horror genres over the last four decades. The album cover displays a reworked version of Giger's sculpture, Life Support 1993, originally produced in the 1960s, which perfectly draws together the cold, medical terminology grindcore of their past with the warmer, catchier populism of songs like, “No Love Lost”. Carcass, like Giger via Ridley, took their dark and horrific vision to the mainstream by way of traditional song structures and more groove-laden, headbanging riffs. In so doing they created one of the most memorable death metal albums of all time.

Tighter and more focused than their other great album, Necroticism:Descanting The Insalubrious, no time is wasted getting straight to the heart of this piece: great riffs. The opening riff of “Buried Dreams” is absolutely killer, with little peaks of harmonised guitars tingling the spine, while Ken Owens' controlled, mid paced double bass work accentuates the catchy foundation. Fans of extreme metal shouldn't be disappointed though, as Jeff Walker's vocals are still unique, violent rasps that somehow don't permanently injure his vocal cords, and Bill Steer's and Michael Amott's leads are crisp and suitably high in the mix. Second track “Carnal Forge” comes tearing out with a thrash death riff that had a huge impact on At The Gates as they worked on 1995's Slaughter of the Soul. With its speed and lyrical preoccupation with human fleshly decay, “Carnal Forge” is the only track on Heartwork that looks back to previous albums' atmosphere of desensitised dissection, and perhaps works to counter the relatively soft, mid-paced groove found in “No Love Lost”. This is as close as you'll get to finding a warm, love song from Carcass, but its thick riff, heavy drum sound, and screeching, overlapping solos are an ideal lead in to title track, “Heartwork”.

Here we find Carcass in reflective mood concerning aestheticism, emotion, art, and perhaps even their own artistic creations. While the mainstream will always disregard the “noise” of their earlier recordings, perhaps the band struggled with what they must have known was a more “acceptable” sound, and in Walker's lyrics there is a sense of pursuing the darkness of their art to ensure it is honest and meaningful:

Works of heart bleeding dark

Black, magniloquent art

Monotonous palate, murky spectrum, grimly unlimited

Prolific food for thought

Contrasting, fed with force

Abstraction, so choking, so provocative

Bleeding works of art

Seething works so dark

Searing words from the heart

While using more traditional verse-chorus-verse structures, TV and radio-friendly four minute songs, and more emotive lyrics, Carcass are still expressing their unique take on heavy metal, and influencing a whole sub-genre along the way.

In “This Mortal Coil” Carcass's impact on the development of the Gothenburg Sound can be clearly seen. Incorporating blast beats, Iron Maiden-esque galloping bass lines, harmonised riffs, and straight thrashing, it is a mid-album highlight guaranteed to set off a pit even in your bedroom. “Arbeit Macht Fleisch” keeps the quality flowing with some of the most interesting guitar work on the album; furious riffs that seem to turn back on themselves, pinched harmonic punctuation, and solos that act as counter point to an otherwise unrelenting song. This is carried over in to the start of “Blind Bleeding The Blind” with its bluesy lick trade-off invoking memories of Steve Vai – an image that is quickly shattered with Walker's magnificent opening growl. “Doctrinal Expletives” and “Death Certificate” bring the album to a close in suitable fashion with killer riffs, perfect solos from Steer and Amott, drumming that is equally comfortable dealing out blast beats and laying down heavy rock foundations, and snarling (and incredibly well enunciated) vocals.

It's this professionalism, the near perfect execution and production of every note on this album, and the sheer quality of the riffs that seems to turn off some fans, but for me this is Carcass at their pinnacle. Every song has my attention, every riff stands out, every growl makes me pull a demonic face. So while it may have brought about the conditions for a decade long hiatus, it stands as a landmark in British extreme music, and means Carcass will never be forgotten. Like the late H.R. Giger and his dark creations, their artwork will outlive their bodies.