Carcass - Symphonies of Sickness

I consider the Symphonies Of Sickness record the highest point of Carcass' career. It has everything a death metal fan could possibly want and more. The only thing that separates that amazing album and their debut is this demo.

Imagine what Symphonies Of Sickness would sound like with worse production and worse musicianship, That's Carcass' second demo for ya. If you own SoS, you don't really need this recording since it doesn't have any unreleased tracks, and it sounds worse. It sounds somewhat like a rehearsal, even. It's like the band just wanted to hear what they sound like, so they record a few songs.

The actual album sounds as clean as a Britney Spears record after this, so the production whores should skip this one. However, if you're curious about what the full length would sound like if it was done in a Reek Of Putrefaction vein, or if you want to fill in that gap between the two albums, look no further.

Carcass - Reek of Putrefaction

Many people often give this the misnomer of the first "goregrind" album. While it did help pioneer quite a niche style, I loathe such a term for how ridiculous its criterion is. Instead, I would give this more of a logical name, one that many people are more accepting and familiar with, "deathgrind". This along with Repulsion and their debut effort 'Horrified', helped merge two styles that were seemingly worlds apart into a sound that separates itself from other styles.

Both styles that are combined here shine in their own special way though. Some songs like 'Regurgitation of Giblets', 'Foeticide' and 'Festerday' might show more death metal sensibilities with relentless blast beats and more thrashing moments with Death-styled riffs, but songs like 'Suppuration' and 'Feast on Dismembered Carnage' display more of the grindcore stylings reminiscent of early Napalm Death. But within the aforementioned songs mentioned to switch between these dynamics, the other styles are still present. The stereotype that a lot of short songs make a grindcore album could give one the impression that this is a pure grindcore album, but the first set of songs listed could easily bring this argument down. However, all of these songs have that in common, they are short and to the point.

Carcass - Flesh Ripping Sonic Torment

This was the first demo under the Carcass name. I was interested to see how the demo was and how it compared to Reek of Putrefaction in terms of the sound and the audio quality. I was quite surprised, but in a rather pleasant way.

The vocalist, Sanjiv, doesn't sound pitchshifted. He has a fairly solid guttural, and delivers vocals passably well. I was surprised by the straight-up gutturals here, expecting the pitchshifted vocals, but this sounds to be tape-recorder quality, and (in my experience) pitchshifting on that low-grade of equipment doesn't turn out so good.

The drums are fairly standard as well, blasting away indecipherably. It's almost impossible to distinguish the riffs over the drums and vocals, giving the album something of a powerviolence feel. It's free of the ridiculous powerviolence vocals, though, which is a big plus. It sounds a bit like Denak, in my opinion, but with worse production and better vocals.

If you're into really indecipherable brutal grindcore, this is a solid album. A must-have for grind fans and those who enjoy demos. It's impressive how much this band changed, even if the changes went downhill.