CARCASS: REEK OF PUTREFACTION (1988)
1) Genital
Grinder; 2) Regurgitation Of Giblets; 3) Maggot Colony; 4) Pyosisified (Rotten To
The Gore); 5) Carbonized Eyesockets; 6) Frenzied Detruncation; 7) Vomited Anal
Tract; 8) Festerday; 9) Fermenting Innards; 10) Excreted Alive; 11)
Suppuration; 12) Foeticide; 13) Microwaved Uterogestation; 14) Feast On
Dismembered Carnage; 15) Splattered Cavities; 16) Psychopathologist; 17) Burnt To
A Crisp; 18) Pungent Excruciation; 19) Manifestation Of Verrucose Urethra; 20) Oxidized
Razor Masticator; 21) Mucopurulence Excretor; 22) Malignant Defecation.
If you ever had any problems with the Liverpudlian
accents of the Fab Four, try this for
comfort: anybody capable of deciphering even a single word on Carcass' debut
album without peeking into the lyrics sheet should probably be burned at the
stake for serious witchcraft. Likewise, if you can commit even a single
«melody» on this album to an individual memory cell, you should probably take
immediate action to get yourself committed before the shit hits the fan.
Meet bass player Jeffrey Walker, guitarist Bill
Steer, and drummer Ken Owen, three friendly and (according to most sources)
perfectly normal guys that, one day, set out on the quest of making the most
disgusting rock album ever. The
immediate influence here is the pioneering grindcore of Napalm Death, for whom
Steer also played guitar (and Walker designed the art of their first album, Scum, just to indicate the sort of
symbiotic relationship between the two) — but while Napalm Death concentrated
more on the laconic-minimalistic side of things, Carcass took it into an, ahem,
somewhat more anatomical direction.
As you can see, you do not need to go further than the song titles — and a
thorough study of the lyrics with a medical encyclopaedia by your side,
accompanied by some unflinching staring at this and the ensuing album covers,
will make you perfectly qualified for a job as morgue assistant without any
real need for a college degree.
The only thing in favor of this record is total commitment — but its totality is,
in fact, so overwhelming that it translates to a certain kind of hip charm
even in the minds of perfectly sane people (in fact, perfectly sane people are its base audience — it's not as if
Carcass had a small, but loyal fanbase of mass murderers and necrophiliacs in
mind). The band is unquestionably very tight and professional, but here it
completely sacrifices skill to the idea of heaviness, speed, and «melodic
blurriness», making Slayer sound like ABBA in comparison; and the vocals are an
incomprehensible slurred growl all the way. For 37 minutes in a row, the record
operates in two modes — fast and very fast, where all fast parts sound
the same, all very fast parts sound the same, and the only difference between
fast and very fast is... uh... tempo.
One does have to somehow «accept» the whole
package — music, voice, song titles, song lyrics, album art, etc. — for the
experience to work. Of course, it's essentially an «anti-musical» joke, whose
only serious point is testing the limits of personal and artistic freedom,
something that John Peel must have understood very well when he called Carcass
his favorite new band of 1988 and got them to appear on his show. Later on, the
songs would become longer, more melodic and «musical», not to mention the
production, which is pretty bad here, and, apparently, the band members
themselves were unhappy with it, but with this kind of approach, lo-fi, dirty,
and mean actually works best: I mean, when you name a song ʽVomited Anal
Tractʼ, it better sound like a vomited anal tract, or else what's the frickin'
point?
It would hardly make sense to condemn the album
with the «anybody could produce this kind of shit» argument, either. First, it
takes some serious practice to become a top level grindcore artist. Second, it
takes real guts (or, perhaps, in the spirit of the album, it takes some really fermented innards) to come up
with such an uncompromising concept. Third, once you get around to reading the
lyrics, they are really hilarious —
probably some of the most verbose, poetic, inventive texts centered around
complex human anatomy ever thought of by living man (not that I'm mentally
prepared to analyze any of them here). Fourth, the sheer contrast between the
personalities of the band members (who are nice-behaving vegetarians) and the
«atrociousness» of the whole concept is somehow quite comforting — I'd
certainly rather have that than
comparable work of an actual madman like G. G. Allin.
But clearly, there's no need to actually
discuss the music; unlike later Carcass albums, the basic point of these songs
is that even if they start out with actual chord sequences, the insane tempos
mash them together in a grinder and the muddy production finishes the job. The
idea is not to «hum» these songs, but to participate in a deranged, macabre
dance of death — a fun thing to do, provided you do not accidentally blast
these songs out of your car when passing near a hospice (and even if you do,
you'd still have to drop leaflets with printed lyrics in the yard to achieve
the necessary sacrilegious effect) or send out a complementary version of the
CD to victims of nuclear meltdown accidents. I am not, by any means, giving this album a proper «thumbs up», but I
certainly acknowledge not just its right to existence, but its actual artistic
purpose. Besides, you could probably get an M.D., easy, with just a cursory
analysis of the lyrics — or, at the very least, vastly expand your anatomical vocabulary.
Oh boy, Carcass reviews. Well, it was a matter of time before George returned to reviewing extreme metal artists. I have tried listening to this album, but just cannot enjoy the guttural atmosphere that work like this generates. If I go extreme metal, I prefer it blackened. (Hoping to see you review Darkthrone in the future)
ReplyDeleteStill waiting for one Van Morrison review. 'M'seems like such a long way away. As does'p'for Prince. Love to hear your take on his middle to late period.
ReplyDeletePrince reviews would be awesome, but it will take a decade, if not longer, before George reviews anything from him beyond Purple Rain in the Important Album Series.
DeleteVan Morrison will be a V, actually.
DeleteOn the flip side, Frank Zappa will be an F.
The track list certainly plants the flag. No question of what you'd be getting into, anyway.
ReplyDeleteKind of see the Beatles' influence in this package -- the cover is like an over-the-top version of the "butcher" cover, and "Festerday" is a pretty hilarious song title.
MMMmmm boy, this is my cut of beef here! My version of this album is in fact bonus tracks on "Symphonies of Sickness" ... It is easy to dismiss because in Carcass' wake so many bands think all that's needed is ratatatat drums & gross-out lyrics. With several exceptions like Terrorizer & Repulsion, Carcass practically made the entire Grind sub-genre unnecessary before it even got going.
ReplyDeleteWhy oh why did George when reviewing A-bands pass by Anal Cunt?
ReplyDeleteI would definitely like to read George's review of Picnic of Love after he goes through Seth's earlier work.
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