CARCASS — Symphonies of Sickness (review)

CARCASS — Symphonies of Sickness album cover Album · 1989 · Goregrind Buy this album from MMA partners
3/5 ·
Time Signature
Exhume to headbang...

Genre: death metal / grindcore

Entering into the territory of death metal, Carcass slowed down a bit on this album, whilst still retaining numerous blast beats. This actually works very well, as it allowed them to focus a bit more on riffing and song structure.

This works quite weel on a track like "Exhume to Consume" which contains several riffs and tempo changes, which also goes for "Excoriating Abdominal Emanation", which contains several really cool riffs. "Ruptured in Purulence" is one of the weaker tracks and more reminiscent of "Reek of Putrefaction" material, but it has a couple of nice evil thrashy riffs. "Empathological Necroticism" is riff- and structurewise a predecessor of the style on the "Necroticism" album, and contains some almost groovy section (it's probably my favorite of the album along with "Embryonic Necropsy and Devourment" and "Swarming Vulgar Mass of Infected Virulency" which are also in the "Necroticism" style. "Cadaveric Incubator of Endoparasites" is more of an all-out grindcore song and, had it been produced differently, the debut album "Reek of Putrefaction" would probably have sounded like this track.

In terms of noise music and blastbeating, "Symphonies of Sickness" may be less extreme, but I think it's actually more creepy (which we metallers like) than the debut album because of the slower tempos. This is not my favorite Carcass album, but the more I listen to it, the more I appreciate it.

I think that, despite the de-grindcoring of Carcass' style, there are enough blastbeats and extremeties on the album for grindcore fans to like it, and the crossover from grindcore to death metal should also make it appeal to death metal fans.
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