I seem to be talking about Carcass a lot these days. It’s probably not that surprising considering how far reaching the British legends’ influence is. Their influence has spawned many ‘Worship’ bands that attempt to capture the feel of certain parts of the bands career. Exhumed along with General surgery are two of the most masterful examples of this. At least they are, in my opinion.
Exhumed’s earlier material sounded like a very faithful and effective channeling of Carcass’s first two albums: ‘Reek of Putrefaction’ and ‘Symphonies of Sickness’. After disappearing for around 5 years Exhumed came back in 2011 with ‘All guts, no glory’ which had Matt Harvey handling all vocal duties. Instrumentally, ‘All guts, no glory’ followed a similar instrumental frame work as their earlier stuff, delivering fast Death metal inflected Grindcore. Necrocracy marks a return to two vocal styles, with Matt Harvey delivering the shrieks and the lower growls provided by Rob Babcock and Bud Burke. Despite the return to the old vocal dynamic, ‘Necrocracy’ could be, as far as musical direction is concerned, thought of as Exhumed’s ‘Heartwork’. This is due to the more melodic and wider appealing sound. But honestly, it’s no where near as good as Heartwork.
‘Necrocracy’ musically is a lot more varied than the bands previous work. There are a number of songs, especially on the first half of the album that play with more mid-paced tempo’s and stop/start song structures. The albums title track starts this way and then has a more -true to the bands earlier style- fast paced bridge that comes out of nowhere after a second or two of silence, layered with a fast melodic guitar solo.This section sounds good, but the transition from the earlier part of the song comes across as far too jarring. At first I thought I’d arrived at a new song on the album, until I checked, only to find that I was still on the same track. Over all the first 4 songs are a bit hit and miss. The first song ‘Coins upon the eyes’ is different from what I’m used to from Exhumed but still makes for an enjoyable listen. Except for the example mentioned above, most of the melodic bridge transitions are effective enough, with the riff’s and solo’s providing a compelling experien
The album speeds up a bit with sickened, which sounds a bit more like the bands previous material. The melodic bridges and solos are still here, but the core of the songs still thrash a lot more than the front end of the cd. This material, at least to me, is a lot more interesting than the start of the album. Unfortunately, the core of the album, subtracting any bonus tracks, is only nine songs in length. This means that the more enjoyable part of the album was over and done with far too quickly for my tastes. This all leaves me with some mixed feelings. Most of the songs have parts that are compelling to my tastes, but don’t maintain the same level of quality over their entire length.
This makes it hard for me to recommend this album wholeheartedly. The return of the two vocal style dynamic is welcome. Matt and co show that they are able to do the more melodic styled riffage well at points, and the solos in general are very good. But for the most part, it’s not cohesive enough for me.
Your mileage may vary. You’d be better off with Carcass’s latest album ‘Surgical Steel’ which is frankly: Pretty fucking awesome.
Fermata over Whole Rest 