CARCASS: SWANSONG (1995)
1) Keep On Rotting In The Free
World; 2) Tomorrow Belongs To Nobody; 3) Black Star; 4) Cross My Heart; 5)
Childs Play; 6) Room 101; 7) Polarized; 8) Generation Hexed; 9) Firm Hand; 10)
R**k The Vote; 11) Don't Believe A Word; 12) Go To Hell.
Well, I totally agree with the fans that Swansong can hardly even begin to be
considered a proper Carcass album. Where are the insane tempos? Where's the
guitar/bass/drum madness? Where are the gory lyrics? Pretty much the only thing that somehow ties this record
to everything that was before are the growling vocals, and even these are
constantly in danger of becoming comprehensible — this is arguably the first
Carcass album where you can generally make out what the songs are about, and
many of them are about... social protest and disillusionment... oh wait... are
these guys turning into Bad Religion or what???
Not surprisingly, the album often gets negative
marks from metalhead fans and critics alike, because, well, those who want
their Bad Religion can have it, and those who want their kick-ass melodic heavy
metal à la Accept can have it, but
this is like a total frickin' sellout — and, in fact, it was almost going to be
official, since after the success of Heartwork
Carcass, with new guitar player Carlo Regadas replacing Michael Amott (who went
off to start Arch Enemy), were all set to go big, signing up with Columbia.
Eventually, much to the relief of the indie metal crowd, the deal fell through,
and they returned to Earache records; but in the meantime, the band members
managed to spoil their mutual relationship, Bill Steer kind of got bored with
the whole metal business, and by the time they mopped up the sessions, the
group was pretty much finished.
That said, if you look at the general evolution
of Carcass music, Swansong seems
like a perfectly logical conclusion. Arguable as it is, I'd still say that it
contains their most «naturally-sounding» and memorable set of tunes, even if it
comes at the expense of downplaying the shock factor almost to zero level and
dropping the search for innovative production techniques and melodic layerings.
A single example may suffice — the main riff of ʽBlack Starʼ, sounding like a
nasty shrapnel run from a low-cruisin' airplane, seems far more evocative to me
than anything on Heartwork, let
alone all those earlier and messier tunes. It may be a minus, yes, that the
track quickly begins to sound like a solid, but derivative imitation of Iron
Maiden; but this will only lead us into the uncomfortable depths of discussing
what matters more — quality/memorability or innovation/individuality — and I'd
like to avoid that discussion in a set of Carcass reviews.
Anyway, at least they do not lose their sense
of punny humor (ʽKeep On Rotting In The Free Worldʼ, ʽGeneration Hexedʼ), and
at least these good riffs and melodic solos keep coming, even if I could
totally see ʽGeneration Hexedʼ sung cleanly
by Accept's Udo Dirkschneider and its riffs cracked out by Wolf Hoffmann — and
most other songs are like a mish-mash of various metal substyles, from Metallica-Megadeth
thrash to the British New Wave (the band themselves mentioned Thin Lizzy as
one of the influences at the time, although this is certainly not the first
association that is going to jump into your head). Actually, at this point the
growling vocals in general are an unfortunate atavistic compromise — songs like ʽRoom 101ʼ, with its mad prophet
tale, were made to be sung cleanly: I close my eyes and try to imagine what
would Ronnie James Dio have done with it, and once I do, the actual version
begins to sound like a death metal parody of an unpreserved Dio track.
In fact, with a cleaner approach, Swansong would have made for a very
impressive collection of «protest-metal» tunes — the melodies of songs like
ʽTomorrow Belongs To Nobodyʼ have enough thunder and snap to them to sound
convincing, and I cannot for the life of me regard Steer's and Walker's
songwriting here as throwaway songwriting (well, apparently while they were
writing the tunes and making the original recordings, nobody thought as of yet
that this would be the band's last album). Blame it on the general narrowness
of the metal formula that the record, stripped of the band's traditional
grossness, sounds monotonous and
devoid of individuality — a flaw that would have been more forgivable on an
old school pop record, perhaps. But as long as you're cool with that general
formula, Swansong should be a thumbs up
all the way, and a perfect way to switch off one's career: now that the band
has «matured» to the state of complete adulthood, there's no way further but
down, and disbanding was the most natural thing to do.
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