Unitron Death Shall Rise is the second studio album from old-school death metal band Cancer.

Cancer cemented themselves into the world of death metal with their debut, To the Gory End, only to return a year later with their sophomore release. In a short year's time did they make ends of gore meet, or did they not release a worthy follow-up to the underrated old-school death metal classic?

Well the album opens up with perhaps the band's best song and a should-be death metal classic with "Hung, Drawn, and Quartered". This song represents the absolute best in old-school death metal, with thrashing guitar, Slayer-esque guitar solos, some particularly impressive drumming, and an infectiously catchy growl along chorus. Unfortunately that amazing opening track makes most of everything else pale in comparison. Not to say there aren't more winners here, as "Gruesome Tasks" and "Corpse Fire" are killer and most of the songs here have some great catchy riffs and passages, especially the title cut and "Internal Decay".

Most of the songs here are longer than most from the debut, which unfortunately makes this album a bit monotonous at times. The debut didn't suffer this, as most of the songs were killer and compact, while here some are stretched out too long. The album still flows well like the debut, but it's just simply not as catchy or exciting. The lyrics are still gruesome also, so don't worry about all of sudden hearing about flowers and sunshine.

While "Hung, Drawn, and Quartered" is one of my favorite death metal songs, the rest of the album unfortunately doesn't really hold up to that fantastic opener. It's still a pretty good old-school death metal album, but it does lack the addictive grooves of the debut. It's worth a listen, but I think the debut easily has the edge over it.

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UMUR "Death Shall Rise" is the 2nd full-length studio album by UK death metal act Cancer. The album was released through Vinyl Solution/Restless Records in May 1991. As a three-piece Cancer released a relatively succesful debut album in "To the Gory End (1990)", but for the recording of "Death Shall Rise", the band added lead guitarist James Murphy who at the time was known for his work with Death and Obituary. "Death Shall Rise" was recorded at the legendary Morrisound Recording in Tampa, Florida and produced by Scott Burns and Cancer. The album features the unmistakable early 90s "Morrisound" death metal sound.

Compared to the debut album "Death Shall Rise" is a sligtly less raw and relatively more sophisticated death metal album. Of course using the word "sophisticated" is a bit misleading as "Death Shall Rise" is through and through an old school death metal album with simple riffing, simple drumming and intelligible growling vocals. James Murphy lays down a couple of his characteristic melodic solos, but that´s about the most sophisticated thing about the album. The songwriting is also pretty simple and most tracks don´t feature more than a couple of different riffs. The tracks are pretty catchy though and I find myself greatly enjoying tracks like "Hung, Drawn and Quartered" (which features Glen Benton from Deicide on backing vocals), "Tasteless Incest" (love the chorus in this one) and "Back from the Dead". The transitions between sections don´t always work seamlessly and the simple (sometimes bordering clumsy) drumming is a bit of an issue too, but there is definitely something charming about the album.

Cancer lost a slight bit of their savage edge between the debut and "Death Shall Rise", but compositioally they are pretty equal in quality. "Death Shall Rise" is upon conclusion not the most distinct sounding death metal release out there, but it´s a solid and quite enjoyable listen for fans of the genre. A 3 - 3.5 star (65%) rating isn´t all wrong.