Carcass‘ newest album, their first since 1995’s much-maligned (though unfairly so) Swansong, exists in the sort of awkward nexus that can only exist between expectation and nostalgia, one that easily prepares a listener for what to expect but also manages to sell short what the band has accomplished.
Carcass‘ newest album, their first since 1995’s much-maligned (though unfairly so) Swansong, exists in the sort of awkward nexus that can only exist between expectation and nostalgia, one that easily prepares a listener for what to expect but also manages to sell short what the band has accomplished. Unlike so many acts who reconstitute themselves after an extended hiatus only to produce some sub-par shadow of their previous incarnation, pretty much anybody who had been a fan of Carcass wouldn’t been unjustified in holding out high hopes for a new release of theirs. They were genre-definers from the start, whether in regards to the medical pathology textbook-cribbed lyrics and downtuned roar of their early grindcore days to the riff salad complexity of their mid-period to the more melodically sophisticated later albums, theirs was a trajectory that was consistently a few years ahead of the curve.
Though inaccurate and unfortunate, the phrasing of the hype and promotional materials surrounding the release of Surgical Steel are hardly a surprise. Much was made of the album being a return to form, supposedly something that would’ve filled a hypothetical gap in their back catalog between Necroticism and Heartwork. Presumably this sort of descriptor was a preemptive strike against any naysayers who might have viewed the album as some sort of weak cash-in, but such neat compartmentalization fails to capture why the album is as good as it is.
Rather than a throwback to a particular period of Carcass’ career, the album acts as a continuation of the creative arc that they had established in their initial run. Though it’s a worthy successor to those albums, it isn’t directly comparable to any of them, and for that the band’s fans should be eminently thankful. From the first notes of “1985,” it becomes readily apparent that any assessment of the retrogressive nature of Surgical Steel has been greatly overstated.
The song, titled after the year of the band’s inception (though bearing little to nothing in common with the music they made at the time), consists solely of harmonized guitars entwined around each other with no rhythm section to ground them, like some death metal take on Judas Priest’s “The Hellion” (had Carcass’ album been titled with some reference to Screaming For Vengeance rather than British Steel, the analogy would be that much more apt) before launching into “Thrasher’s Abbatoir,” a 110-second workout consisting of the fastest, most direct material the band has released in some time, establishing from the start that the band has lost neither their ability to hone memorable riffs or to play them with an intensity that many had worried was lost with the more mid-tempo material of Swansong.
It may be projecting an intention onto the album that wasn’t the band’s goal, but Carcass approach Surgical Steel as if they had a chip on their shoulder (though this isn’t unreasonable to assume, as the members have displayed no hesitation when voicing their distaste for the majority of modern heavy music, much of which they inspired).
The songs are faster and leaner than they had been in years, with neither of the initial two tracks exceeding two minutes, and with the blastbeats that had been conspicuously absent from the previous album or two pepper the album liberally. Not only are the individual parts catchier and more memorable, from the breakdown in “Cadaver Pouch Conveyor System” to the harmonized guitar riffs in “Captive Bolt Pistol,” but these component elements flow into each other with a clarity the band had only begun to hone when they had initially ceased to be.
Lyrically, Carcass’s trademark verbosity is still very much on display, though unlike previous efforts, there is no single focus. There are nods to the past, to be sure, whether that’s the sanguine-minded content of “A Congealed Clot Of Blood” and “The Master Butcher’s Apron” or the socio-political content of “Unfit For Human Consumption” and “Mount Of Execution” (respectively decrying the meat industry and the use of religion as a justifying element for deadly force), but the general focus lies more with the craft of the wordsmithery itself, a tapestry of images and phrases both cryptic and clever that can construct a worldview in a manner paralleled by few other heavy bands.
All of these concomitant elements demonstrate that, while Surgical Steel is hardly out of step with Carcass’ overall approach, it acts as more of a refinement of their aesthetic and a reminder of how poor a job their imitators did. It should surprise nobody that, of any band attempting this sort of career resuscitation, Carcass would be the one to accomplish it so successfully.
But it should also be noted that the sole defining characteristic of their entire body of work (aside from obvious ones like overall genre or instrumentation) has been an unwillingness to take the path of least resistance. At any point they could have trod on familiar ground, likely to the pleasure of their fans and the benefit of their bank accounts. But instead they have time and again pushed forward into territory that’s not necessarily unfamiliar but is as consistently challenging as the output of a true artist should be.
