CARCASS — Torn Arteries (review)

Album · 2021 · Melodic Death Metal

5/5 · 2021-10-02
Vim Fuego

“For fuck’s sake, give it here and let me show you how to do it properly!” – Carcass to every other melodic death metal band.

OK, this quote is obviously made up, but this is what “Torn Arteries” feels like Carcass is saying to other bands. After all, Carcass gave them the blueprints back in the early 90s. “Necroticism: Descanting The Insalubrious” showed societal satire could be combined with glorified gore and head kicking metal. And then with “Heartwork” they threw in huge chunks of unexpected melody, mountainous riffs, and a crystal clear yet distinctly deathly sound, and defined a whole new metal sub-genre. The band then got justifiably pissed off with the music business and fucked off for more than a decade. The creaky old zombie was stitched back together in 2007, and since then seems to be on a fairly relaxed album cycle. It’s been 8 years since “Surgical Steel”, and “Torn Arteries” was well and truly worth the wait.

You see, when it comes to melodic death metal, Carcass focuses on the death metal, and the melody comes second, and not the other way round. This is evident right from the first bars of the first track on the album, also the title track. It has a punishing drum intro and then into the trademark riffs. No samples, no atmospheric fucking about, just foot to the floor metal. Yes, there’s melody, but it’s dialled way back and comes more through lead guitars than vocals. It’s the perfect mix of “Necroticism...” and “Heartwork”, but dragged battered and bleeding into the 21st century.

The humour, both philosophic and comedic, drips from almost every track. “Dance of Ixtab (Psychopomp & Circumstance March No.1 in B)” refers to the Mayan goddess of suicide by hanging. “Eleanor Rigor Mortis” has the fastest intro this band has written since 1991, and thankfully has nothing to do with The Beatles song this title parodies.

“Under The Scalpel Blade” seems to be a pointed examination of the cradle-to-grave medical industrial complex, which profits from pain. “The Devil Rides Out” is an anti-Satanism song, but most definitely isn’t pro-Christian, with some evil, twisted riffs, an outro which could almost be a black metal parody. And then just to fuck with you, the intro to “Flesh Ripping Sonic Torment Limited” is some gentle acoustic picking… and then the song then smashes into full death metal fury, transforming into a near 10 minute epic. Yeah, they nearly went prog here, but kept it interesting.

From a band which seems to have produced masterpiece after masterpiece (consider “Swansong” a minor blip on the radar), and is justifiably said to have produced the best album of their career each time a new disc drops (yes, skip “Swansong” again), Carcass have done it again. Only the most primitive gore freaks who never moved on from the “Reek of Putrefaction” days could be dissatisfied with this album.

“Torn Arteries” takes everything Carcass has created over the past 35 years and distilled it down to the finest essence du mélodique morte métal. No one else is going to do it better than this.