My 100 Favorite Metal Bands Pt. 18: Carcass

I had a lot of trouble deciding on one spot for some reason. I debated back and forth between Cannibal Corpse and Carcass for the final spot here. Ultimately, I decided on Carcass due to their having released great albums in essentially three different metal genres. Cannibal Corpse is fine, but they are mostly a run-of-the-mill death metal band and Carcass's death metal album is better than anything Cannibal Corpse put out. Then there is the grindcore stuff, which has inspired legions upon legions of imitators such as Aborted and The County Medical Examiners. But what really puts Carcass over the top for me is Heartwork. That album is an early example of melodic death metal, a style that I got into when I first started discovering extreme metal. That album combined with their death metal album puts Carcass far and away above Cannibal Corpse and knocks that band off the Top 100.

FAVORITE ALBUM: NECROTICISM-DESCANTING THE INSALUBRIOUS

Year in Metal: 1993

CARCASS: HEARTWORK
Carcass is revered for being a pioneer in the grindcore genre. However, in their later years the band put out one of the all-time great death metal albums, Necroticism-Descanting the Insalubrious. Still later though, Carcass had a major hand in the formation of melodeath with this amazing album. Featuring cover art from H.R. Giger and some absolutely sick riffs and melodies, this is a great album without which we would not have had melodeath. At least the good stuff anyway.

CYNIC: FOCUS
Along with Atheist, Cynic is responsible for bringing jazz and fusion influences into death metal. Sounds like something doomed to failure, but it surprisingly works quite well. The songs often run the gamut between death metal and more ethereal, serene soundscapes. The vocoder vocals can be a little irritating at times, but it's nothing to stop listening for. Cynic did not release much after this, going on hiatus until just recently releasing their second full-length album.

IMMORTAL: PURE HOLOCAUST
One of the more well-known bands in the Norwegian black metal scene, Immortal is also probably my favorite of the groups. Immortal knows their sound and largely sticks to it, and their sound is chaotic and unholy thrash riffs played with ungodly speed and shrieking vocals. Immortal has created their own world on this album. They may be a little cheesy-looking in pictures and videos, but there is nothing cheesy about this music. Excellent black metal.

MORBID ANGEL: COVENANT
The first time I have ever heard of Morbid Angel was when the video for "God of Emptiness" was on Beavis and Butthead. I thought to myself that I had to get that album. The music was so evil and unlike anything I had ever heard to that point. Well, I was not able to find the album until I really started looking within the last few years. Now, this is one of my favorite death metal albums ever. Terrific death metal that other bands have been trying to copy for years.

PARADISE LOST: ICON
You won't see a lot of gothic metal in these lists, but there will be some. Paradise Lost is probably my favorite such group next to Type O Negative. The English band helped usher in the death/doom genre with Cathedral, My Dying Bride, and Anathema, but they became more of a gothic metal band over time. This album represents the crossroads between the two sounds and the doom elements and gothic elements blend perfectly into a beautiful, but still aggressive album.

HONORABLE MENTIONS: Anthrax: Sound of White Noise, Atheist: Elements, Crowbar: Crowbar, Darkthrone: Under a Funeral Moon, Death: Individual Thought Patterns, Entombed: Wolverine Blues, Fight: War of Words, My Dying Bride: Turn Loose the Swans, Overkill: I Hear Black, Satyricon: Dark Medieval Times, Sepultura: Chaos A.D., Type O Negative: Bloody Kisses.

BANDS THAT FORMED IN 1993: Children of Bodom, Dark Funeral, Diabolical Masquerade, Dimmu Borgir, Electric Wizard, Hammerfall, Melechesh, Nile, Symphony X.

Dusting Off a Cassette Pt. 25: Carcass: Necroticism-Descanting the Insalubrious

I actually bought this one by mistake a little more than a year ago. I was trying to pick up the album on CD but unwittingly bought the cassette off of ebay. Oh well. Just another addition to the cassette collection.

Carcass has had kind of an odd career. The band started out as one of the early grindcore bands out of England along with Napalm Death and Bolt Thrower. Like their countrymen, Carcass began incorporating more and more death metal influences. Necroticism is probably their closest album to straight death metal. There are some grindcore influences and parts, but for the most part, the band had become a death metal band. However, after this album, the band released Heartwork, which is considered one of the earliest melodic death metal albums. And after that, they went in a death 'n roll direction on Swansong.

On this album, Carcass presented their most basic death metal sond. The band also had its most classic song on this album "Corporal Jigsore Quandary". The songs are mostly fast paced, with complex grinding riffs and a very heavy low end. The guitar solos come out of nowhere and are blazing fast and melodic. The vocals are delivered in a lower register rasping growl.

As for the lyrics, Carcass has made a career out of taking words straight from medical textbooks. This album, in addition to "Corporal Jigsore Quandary" also features "Lavaging Expetorate of Lysergide Composition" and "Forensic Clinicism".

After all is said and done this is one of the best death metal albums out of England. It is dynamic and powerful. A great album by the legendary band.