Jawbone

Carcass started off in the late 80’s as a grindcore act, but gradually shifted towards a more melodic death metal style as the years progressed. Necroticism is the harmony of this merger—featuring the technical, almost machine-like precision of their prior effort ‘Symphonies of Sickness’ but shying away from the tempo-dominated, blast beat-heavy approach presented in Symphonies of Sickness. This is a move in the right direction, as Symphonies of Sickness loses much of its impact through it’s heavy reliance on the same techniques (now cliches) of tremolo picking coupled with blast-beats and layered with repetitive scowls. Though intense and influential, Carcass has the capacity for better song writing and bigger contributions to their genre.

Enter Necroticism.

This new Carcass-brand of death metal adds many new approaches to their songwriting repertoire but leaves the strong musicianship of its grindcore influences intact. The vocal tradeoffs are brilliantly orchestrated—bridges feel much more cohesive and tie the longer track together pretty well. It seems Jeff Walker, bassist and lyricist of Carcass, has dusted off the old medical dictionary—leaving in his wake a more highbrow take on goregrind lyrics. The wording is not pretentious though, as it articulately paints the vicious and demented thoughts of the characters portrayed in Necroticism with great success. 

What really pulls Necroticism from the ashes of its predecessor, is the improvements laid forth in the guitar-work. Necroticism focuses less on speed, and more on melodic hooks (at least by grind standards). Carcass differentiates themselves from other death metal acts via their belabored song structure—almost pop-like in its slow key changes, but grooving and unrelenting in its performance.  Scales are well delineated between measures, resulting in an almost classical-approach to death metal. One of my personal favorites amongst death metal.

Favorite tracks: Incarcerated Solvent Abuse, Corporal Jigsore Quandary, Inpropagation