Reek Of Putrefaction [VINYL]

Anyhoo, lecture aside, this is a true death-grind monster. For a moment ignore the bizarre production and just listen, and you can hear so much going on despite the constraints of the recording. Musically, this is just as complex as their later works, and lyrically the band's bizarre (more damning listeners might want to change that to sick and warped) med-student sense of humour comes shining through. The riffs are mighty, the technicality is superb and the punk-rock Discharge style production gives an impressive bite despite what anyone else may say.

This incarnation of Carcass is a totally different beast to later reiterations such as Heartwork, but this record still makes an excellent companion to the later material. You'll either love it or hate it, but the same magic that makes Heartwork so brilliant still breathes beneath it's sludgy 80s punk sound, and Reek of Putrefaction is a CD I can see taking pride of place among my other death metal records. Even if you eventually lose interest, you could do far far worse in the metal arena very easily (and with CDs that had much more money thrown at them), and I think honestly if you take the time with this CD and don't instantly dismiss it on account of it's sludge-ridden production job as many have, then it'll repay you in spades. So come on, don't waste your hard-earned readies on some brainless US flavour of the week 'alternative rock' bandwagon jumper (Creed anyone...shudder), buy this and rock like never before. Read more ›

Aside from the ‘music’ Carcass really made an impact with their lyrics and imagery, with the album cover being so shocking (a collage of real-life autopsy photographs) that the album artwork was subsequently banned for being obscene, and even now has only been re-released under a (removable) obscuring black card inlay. Lyrically the band also pushed at the extremities – with every song relentlessly obsessed with death, corpses and extreme suffering. While bands like Repulsion had already set the standards for this, Carcass brought a medical dictionary verbosity to their lyrics – who else would open a song with the lines “Pyosis mucolysifies malignant mucocoeles / pustules endocrinating disseminated mortified cells”? All 3 band members share the vocals fairly equally here – with Bill Steer providing the low-pitch grunting, Ken Owen even lower squelchy voices, and Jeff Walker giving high-pitch barks – all sound suitably sick, to complement the music.

Make no mistake – Reek of Putrefaction could never be honestly described as a ‘good’ album – the band sound sloppy and amateurish at times, and the production is god-awful – but by producing the first ever gore-grind album Carcass unwittingly opened the floodgates for hundreds of other copycat bands, and such is the far-reaching influence of this album that it really cant be considered as anything less than a classic. Having set the template Carcass would go on themselves to master the goregrind sound with their second album Symphonies of Sickness, but if you’re willing to accept the inevitable rough edges of the bands first effort Reek of Putrefaction still has the power to crush. Read more ›