UMUR
"Surgical Remission / Surplus Steel" is an EP release by UK death metal act Carcass. The EP was released through Nuclear Blast Records in November 2014. All material on the 5 track, 17:40 minutes long EP was recorded during the sessions for "Surgical Steel (2013)", but up until now, has only been available spread out over the digipack and the Japanese import versions of "Surgical Steel (2013)", and in the case of "Zochrot", it was originally only available as a give away flexi disc with the October 2013 issue of Decibel Magazine. So "Surgical Remission / Surplus Steel" is basically a rarities EP, with outtakes from the "Surgical Steel (2013)" sessions.
While the tracklist says 5 tracks, the closing track is just a slightly altered version of the short instrumental "1985" from "Surgical Steel (2013)" titled "1985 (Reprise)", so in reality there are actually only 4 regular tracks on the EP. The opening track "A Wraith in the Apparatus" is probably the track which is closest in sound to the predominantly melodic death/thrash material on "Surgical Steel (2013)", while the other 3 tracks are slightly more hard rock/heavy metal infused, at times bringing up memories of the material on "Swansong (1996)".
While these are outtakes I´d still say the quality is pretty high, and while I think it was a wise move to keep these tracks off "Surgical Steel (2013)", they are also too good not to be released, so I definitely approve of the idea behind releasing "Surgical Remission / Surplus Steel". If you´re not a hardcore fan, you should probably listen to "Surgical Steel (2013)" before this EP, but even for the more casual listener, this could prove a good purchase and a 3.5 - 4 star (75%) rating is deserved.