Tag: Carcass

Picking Five Songs From 1993

On By bigbadburchIn Songs By Year6 Comments

So now I’m spamming out these “songs by year” posts twice a week. I was supposed to post this yesterday, but oh well. This will help me get through this series by or near the end of the year, it’ll probably bleed a hair bit into 2026 but it will accomplish my goal just the same.

We are now to 1993. For me I was in the middle of high school and now more used to the massively changed music landscape since 1991 blew everything up. Alt rock was the new normal and heavy metal was going in several directions, some weird and some that would shape the genre for decades to come. I was in the thick of it and I was in an odd place where I was both enjoying the stuff I’d see on MTV and also exploring heavy metal’s underground, mostly shaped by this point at what we now call the old school death metal scene.

Essentially the music of the 1990’s was an adverse reaction to the music of the ’80’s and I was more so along for the ride on the side of the 1990’s. As I got older I would come to re-embrace the ’80’s music of my childhood, but at this point I was a 1990’s teenager. Like many dumb teenagers at the time, I felt like Mike Judge was spying on me and my friends when he came up with the concept for Beavis and Butthead. In reality he came up with it a few years before this but let’s not let the truth get in the way of my awesome narrative.

Anyway, enough of long-winded horseshit, as much as I engage in it on a weekly basis on this site. Let’s get into five of the songs I love from 1993.

Dwight Yoakam – A Thousand Miles From Nowhere

I have to keep this short so I won’t get huge into it, but most of my appreciation for 1990’s country came many, many years later as I let go of old biases and learned to appreciate the medium. The particulars of this would take too long to discuss, but one song I did really love at the time was this cryfest of a breakup song from Dwight. This cut from his mega hit album This Time hit with me the first time I ran into it. I can’t remember for sure because this was all over 30 years ago, but I kind of think MTV even played this a bit, but whatever the case I was exposed to it and became a fan of Dwight’s through this song. Fantastic stuff.

Tool – Sober

Now for what I was more into at the time, the concept of alt-metal showed up in full force by 1993. This was the introduction to Tool for most of us and it was a whale of a hit. This has crushing riffs and a hypnotic beat as the lyrics weave a tale of someone caught in addiction and not getting out. The video was also a massive talking point, with claymation figures made by guitarist Adam Jones and an eerie stop motion approach to the flick. People can say whatever they want about Tool and they often do, but this was a total mindfuck back in the day.

Cracker – Low

This was the year Cracker came around with what became their big hit. This song was all over MTV and other airwaves and has endured years later. This song is interesting because it fits the “woeful dirge” style but also has a massive amount of swagger to it, it is far more powerful than its mournful tone would imply. I also don’t know what in the hell they’re talking about in the lyrics, things were very obtuse in music around this time but the song rocks so that’s all I really need.

Carcass – Heartwork

This year Carcass chose to continue their evolution away from their grindcore past and fully embrace the strains of melodic death metal. It was great timing, as that scene was emerging out of Gothenburg, Sweden at the same time. Carcass put their own English stamp on the scene and delivered a clinical, precise and still brutal set. The title track of this album sees a tortured artist and, well, a tortured art piece, as the artist tries to assemble his masterpiece from the dismembered remains of his muse. This song had a bit of an extra kick in the ass along with it.

Sepultura – Refuse/Resist

The Brazilian masters of heavy released their seminal Chaos A.D. In 1993. The opening track is a brutal and noisy offering that showcases political and social unrest alongside a more groovy and tribal-oriented musical style in contrast to Sepultura’s thrash and death metal past. It remains as one of the band’s standout tracks to this day.

That wraps up 1993. Next week we’ll continue to plumb the depths of the mid-1990’s and cover when I exited school and entered the “real” world.

Picking Five Songs From 1991

On By bigbadburchIn Songs By Year3 Comments

This was supposed to be last Friday’s post. Go figure that a holiday and an extra day off would cause me to miss a post. But I digress.

Here we are. This is my weekly series where I pick five of my favorite songs from a given year. This time around, that given year is 1991.

It’s safe to say that 1991 is the most important music year of my life. I have all the love in the world for 1984, as I put on display a lot of last year. But nothing was as earth shattering and life altering as everything that happened in 1991.

It wasn’t just everything that happened in music, either – I turned 14 and started my freshman year of high school in 1991. In fact, my birthday was about a week after Metallica released their megalithic self-titled album. Everything was changing fast and I honestly wasn’t even on top of it all – both in life and in music. It would all come together eventually (in music, not in life…)

But today’s exercise is pretty simple – I will select five of my favorite songs from the year. Five is barely a drop in the bucket in terms of the music of 1991, but I’m going to keep this series on the rails and just handle it like any other year. If/when this site gets to 2031 I will dedicate the bulk of that year’s posts to reminiscing about 1991, and probably in a big blowout way that dwarfs even what I did for 1984. Something to look forward to in 5.5 years, I guess.

Sepultura – Dead Embryonic Cells

We kick off with this slice of obliteration from the album Arise, often regarded as the Brazilians’ magnum opus. It is equal parts thrash precision and a savage beating, with Sepultura crafting a sound that would serve as a bridge into extreme metal. The song is about being born in a world that is essentially dead and the brutality of the music captures the sentiment perfectly.

Skid Row – Wasted Time

The closing track from the seminal Slave To The Grind album is a ballad by which the bulk of other ballads can be judged. This haunting tale captures someone in the throes of drug addiction, the song was written about former Guns N’ Roses drummer Steven Adler. Sebastian Bach’s vocals soar here and everything comes together for a song that is simply beautiful.

Ozzy Osbourne – No More Tears

The tides of music were shifting in grand fashion in 1991, but the Prince of Darkness could still be counted on to deliver a worthy tune. Ozzy had a bit of a renaissance year in ’91 with the No More Tears album being a huge hit and this title track becoming one of his several signature tracks. This song is the twisted tale of a serial killer, but not told in open terms. Still it’s ominous and creepy.

Mötley Crüe – Primal Scream

Hair metal was being cast out by the second half of 1991, but no one gave Crüe the memo. They put out a greatest hits set with a handful of new songs on it, and this new track was electric. This was heavy, gritty and pounding, seeing the band move up a weight class in the heavy department. It foretold a massive new decade for Crüe, which did not pan out at all, but this kick ass song was a welcome drop in the minefield of ’91.

Carcass – Corporal Jigsore Quandary

By ’91 Carcass were on their third album and had shifted their sound from grindcore to death metal. This prime cut saw the band incorporate a bit of technicality into a very smooth death metal vehicle. And while the title and lyrics are overly wrought, as usual for earlier Carcass, the song is essentially about someone putting a human body back together. It is likely that the person doing the re-assembly is the same person responsible for the body’s dismembered state.

And that does it for five songs from the crazy year of 1991. I had originally thought picking a further five songs as I did for 1984, but in the end I decided against it as I want my focus to be on pushing on with the series.

Next week – I was originally going to restart album posts, but last week’s historic gigs have given us a handful of songs to go over so I will spend a few posts looking at stuff from both the final Ozzy show and the Oasis reunion instead. And I’ll press on with this, jumping in to 1992 where rock and metal were off to the races in many different directions.

Carcass – Surgical Steel (Album of the Week)

On By bigbadburchIn Album of the Week2 Comments

Kicking off the new year with a whale of an album. This was a long-anticipated reunion record that actually managed to not only live up to the hype but exceed it. Playing together for six years before recording might have helped with that.

Carcass – Surgical Steel

Released September 2013 via Nuclear Blast Records

My Favorite Tracks – Thrasher’s Abbatoir, The Granulating Dark Satanic Mills, Captive Bolt Pistol

Discussing Carcass does require a bit of backstory to provide context for the reunion. Carcass were a pioneering band of the “extreme metal era” of the early 1990’s. Beginning as a grindcore outfit, the band morphed into a melodic death metal machine that captured attention with albums like Necrotism and especially Heartwork. The group dissolved in 1996 but got the reunion bug in 2007 and began touring again. After a series of very well-received tours the band shuffled a few members and set about recording their first album in nearly 20 years.

Bassist/vocalist Jeff Walker and guitarist Bill Steer were still around from the band’s heyday. Guitarist Michael Amott had been part of the reunion tours but left the band to focus on his main gig Arch Enemy. Original drummer Ken Owen was unable to rejoin Carcass due to health problems but would provide backing vocals on the record. He was replaced initially by Daniel Erlandsson from Arch Enemy, but Dan Wilding would join as the new drummer for the recording.

The album comes in with a fairly lean run time of 51 minutes but there are 12 tracks, 11 to discuss. Also, Carcass lyrics and titles are often dense and sometimes unclear in meaning so this will be fun.

Thrasher’s Abbatoir

After the instrumental intro 1985, Carcass kicks off its first new song in decades on a banging note. The song has a go at all of the -tion words, which was a common thing to laugh about in the early 90’s death metal scene with a million bands like Suffocation, Incantation and other -tions running around. The song is dreadfully simple yet brilliantly executed, Carcass is very much open for business again.

Cadaver Pouch Conveyor System

The Carcass lyric writing method often involves opening a medical dictionary and throwing a lot of words together. This is in full force here, as I have no clue what a cadaver pouch conveyor system is. I’m sure the other 8 billion people on the planet share my confusion. There is stuff about death and mutilation in the lyrics but this isn’t a concept album so I’ll say the song is great and move on.

A Congealed Clot Of Blood

The medical concept here is far more understandable, but the song is actually about holy war or some shit like that. Whatever – the riffs are massive and the hooks in plentiful supply and Carcass is bashing its way through its return album.

The Master Butcher’s Apron

The tempo slows down a bit here which helps take in the lyrics which are about the slaughter of humans, or perhaps the slaughter of animals or something. I don’t really know, it’s very dense stuff, just headbang to it.

Noncompliance To ASTM F899-12 Standard

It sounds really complicated but this is perhaps the most logical song title here. The F899-12 Standard, or whatever, is a series of guidelines for how surgical instruments can be manufactured. So, noncompliance with that would meant the surgical tools are substandard. The song itself is about death and stuff, which is a likely consequence of having subpar surgical equipment.

The Granulating Dark Satanic Mills

Ok, so maybe this one is actually the most logical and coherent of the song meanings presented. The Dark Satanic Mills refer to Industrial Revolution-era England and the soulless nature of the architecture and work. And, for once, the song’s lyrics have to do with the title. There’s some involvement with/influence from legendary English poet William Blake here too.

But wait, there’s more! The chorus of the song is simply a sequence of numbers and presents a mystery. The numbers are 6026961. This means nothing to anyone and wouldn’t even work as a set of lottery numbers. But, if you remove the 666 from the sequence, you’re left with 0291, which is apparently a code having to do with US livestock standards. This has never been confirmed as the “true” meaning but it seems the most logical option.

Also the song is fantastic, possibly the best on the album.

Unfit For Human Consumption

We have yet another pretty easy to grasp song here. It’s discussing the food supply and how nasty it can be, long a favorite topic of conversation for the vegetarian-minded Carcass members. The lyrics do get into pretty awful detail, which is fitting since this is death metal after all.

316L Grade Surgical Steel

This serves a sort of a title track. The song seems to actually be a break-up song rather than an essay about surgical steel.

Captive Bolt Pistol

More about the food supply here, this is the device which is meant to instantaneously kill livestock with a blow to the head. The song does not sing the praises of the device.

Mount Of Execution

We depart the world of medical supplies and the food chain for a look at religion’s ills. The song is slower paced and very nicely done, with somber guitar work and a methodical vocal delivery. The song is a beefy one at over 8 minutes and changes tack toward the end, leaving out on a militant riff.

Intensive Battery Brooding

We end the album on yet another “what are you talking about?” title. The song is actually about a thing called Blue Peacock, which was a British Cold-War era idea to use live chickens as a way to keep landmine wiring warm. The mines were going to be planted to halt a Soviet Army advance across Europe. Oh, and the mines were nuclear. What a stupid fucking idea.

In other news, this song was actually a bonus track on certain CD editions of the album. It’s included on the Spotify version so I kept it on here.

Surgical Steel was a hit out of the gate. It was a brilliant return to recorded form for one of extreme metal’s most hallowed bands. This genre of music doesn’t often hit sales charts but this album did break through on several nations’ charts, including both the US and UK.

The critical reception to the album was very positive and fan reaction was tremendous – people were over the moon that the new album was not only good but one of the best the band had done. In a cynical music world where reunions are often brief flashes in the pan, Carcass showed tremendous staying power with lights-out live shows and now a monster of a record.

Nearly a decade later, the shine on Carcass has not faded. They are still considered one of extreme metal’s most significant acts. Rather than join the “release an album every year” fray, they have only put out one more since 2013 – Torn Arteries was a hit on year-end lists and charts in 2021. They continue touring and keeping their top-flight brand of melo-death afloat in an age where multiple generations of bands directly bearing Carcass influence have come and even gone. But a lot of the rub for modern day Carcass worship came from 2013 and Surgical Steel. They are an act who truly took over two different eras and reign as kings of the art form today.