CANCER — Death Shall Rise (review)

CANCER — Death Shall Rise album cover Album · 1991 · Death Metal Buy this album from MMA partners
3.5/5 ·
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 wrote:
more than 2 years ago
Yeah flat is probably the right Word :-)
Unitron wrote:
more than 2 years ago
It's a shame, because that opening song is just so killer. I've never had an issue with the production, but now that I think of it I suppose it is pretty flat compared to the debut. The next album is my favorite from the band.
UMUR wrote:
more than 2 years ago
I agree...the debut is overall a much better release, despite there being a couple of really great tracks on this one too. There´s something about the sound production on this one too, which isn´t quite right.

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