Difficile descrivere un album come questo con termini positivi in quanto potrebbe risultare orribile ai più (e anche per chi lo adora!), ma partiamo dalla storia.
I Carcass nascono a Liverpool nel 1985 come trio, composti da nientemeno che Bill Steer alla chitarra, Jeff Walker al basso e Ken Owen alla batteria. Inizialmente i vocalizzi sono fatti da tutti i membri del gruppo anche se con il passare degli anni Walker diventerà l'unico cantante e Bill Steer continuerà a fare i Growl in pochissime canzoni.
Dopo qualche demo decidono di registrare questo disco prendendo come principale spunto lirico dei libri di medicina, i tre giovani ne rimasero affascinati a tal punto da decidere di utilizzare un collage di foto oscene tratte da codesti libri come copertina!
Questo album è quasi universalmente considerato come il primo album Goregrind della storia anche se come ribadito da Walker stesso la creazione di questo sottogenere è una cosa da affidare alla stampa visto che loro volevano solamente suonare del "normale" Death Metal, a questo Death Metal si aggiunse la brevissima durata delle canzoni, la produzione totalmente ingolfata e un utilizzo spropositato del Blast Beat alla batteria che nel Death non era ancora così comunque (alcune band come i Death o gli Obituary non ne faranno mai uso).
Anche la produzione terribile fu un errore di mastering, secondo Steer per colpa di un fonico incapace e non fatico a credergli. Ma ora passiamo alla musica, che è probabilmente la più violenta che si può trovare sino al suo anno di uscita ossia il 1988, quando gli Slayer suonavano South of Heaven e i Death si accingevano a pubblicare quel capolavoro di "Leprosy", i Carcass suonavano un Goregrind molto primitivo e senza compromessi.
I pochi riff che si riescono a distinguere sono di chiara ispirazione Death Metal ma con un grande utilizzo del tremolo picking che si sposa perfettamente con l'enorme mole di Blast Beat fatti da Owen che coprono quasi l'intera durata del disco tralasciando qualche rallentamento che rende lievemente più dinamica la proposta musicale e che contribuisce a creare quest'enorme atmosfera violenta che circonda l'intero disco. Il basso è spesso inudibile ma nei pochi momenti in cui lo possiamo ascoltare veniamo travolti da una serie di note completamente distorte, pare quasi una motosega! La batteria ha un suono abbastanza naturale pur mantenendo il suono orribile del disco con un rullante molto risonante il cui uso diventerà quasi obbligato per tutte le band Goregrind a venire. La voce è spaventosa per quanto bassa, in alcuni casi anche grazie all'utilizzo di un Pitch Shifter, ed è fantastico come si accoppi perfettamente alla musica quando vengono "doppiate" le voci basse da scream più acuti per generare un'unico muro sonoro.
Penso che in molti siamo concordi sul fatto che quest'album sia totalmente sottovalutato nella discografia dei Carcass, dei quale viene sempre citato Heartwork o al massimo Necroticism, quasi a voler cancellare un passato molto più violento e originale della band solamente per la scarsa qualità sonora o per la cattiveria delle composizioni che probabilmente farà storcere il naso ai più.
Difficile consigliare singole canzoni visto che all'infuori del disco potrebbero essere considerate banali o addirittura noiose nonostante la loro corta durata, sicuramente una canzone come "Vomited Anal Tract" o "Regurgitation Of Giblets" rende bene l'idea di cosa siano riusciti a creare i Carcass, chissà se volutamente o per sbaglio.
Non sarà l'album più vario del mondo ma lo considero un classico e penso che abbia un'atmosfera molto interessante oltre ad un grande valore storico immensamente sottovalutato.
La carcassa però è in continua evoluzione e anche i loro ultimi album sono di ottima fattura.
Elenco tracce testi e video
02 Regurgitation of Giblets (01:24)
Coughing up a mixture
Of mucus, phlegm and bile
The sordid sight of burning flesh
...Your stomach is reviled
Spew up your sanguined guts
In your wooden box
Septic vomit of chyme...
...Putrid offal...
Regurgitated giblets
Blocked in your oesophagus
Eaten by the maggots
Trapped in your sarcophagus
03 Maggot Colony (01:37)
Oozing chyme reeks as your duodenum is hacked
Secreting gastric juices, enzymes melt your faecal tract
Torn major arteries, your corpse with blood is drenched
Your mouth is ripped inside-out as your oesophagus is wrenched
Maggots and grubs bore into the mouldy remains
Masticating lymph, caked blood and cankered decay
Maturating brains play host to the grisly fete
Stuffed anal passage, served on a plate
Purulent torso is a perfect maggots meal
Spilt cerebrospinal fluid is sucked up with zeal
Botulism vitiates the emulsifying bile
Liquidized gall bladder, viscid pus smells vile
04 Pyosisified (Rotten to the Gore) (02:55)
The lingering scirrhus begins to harden
As the insides fall prey to putrefaction
Rotting tissue turns to mush and pulp
As your mind is torn by encephalitis
Your cavities rot with ulcers
Your infected inflammations torn
Your gizzards eaten by incursive decay
You're infernally rotten to the gore...
Juices digested from each pus-swollen pore
Insatiable hunger as I feast on the gore
Nothing gives me greater pleasure
Than a bowl full of chyme
Maggot infested kidneys
Are what I choose every time
The smell of plaguing infection
Is nauseatingly emetic
Prolonged spumescence of stale pus
Stinks like hot, putrid vomit
Your body is indurate
The insides are black as tar
Your innards gnawed by septic hate
Now a mass of empyaema
Your blood is caked
Dried and inconsistent
Your bloody rotten gore
Is now vitrescent
05 Carbonized Eye Sockets (01:11)
The pungent aroma of hot, bubbling, molten gristle
Blends with the stench of hot, singeing flesh soldered to liquid muscle.
As the cornea is pierced and fried sizzling retina
Burning and spitting on the now blackened, charred fovea
Holes of crumbling carbon are all that are left
Charred eye-sockets of hot scorched flesh
Fusing symblepharon, your flesh turns into coke
Extravasative gunge now black, pungent smoke.
Charred eye-sockets - horrifically pernicious
Your sight irreparable by your optician
Once flowing blood is now dried, resembling black pudding
Now all that bleeds is a slow trickle of hot, sticky muscle.
The sclera is a lump of carbon burning on smouldering membrane
Your eyeballs are blistering, your optic nerves now aflame.
06 Frenzied Detruncation (00:59)
Limb from limb...
Curled glands...
Hacked giblets...
Stumps for hands...
Limb from bloody limb
Ruptured spleen...
Rancid loin...
Shattered ribs...
Splattered groin...
Retching pus...
Dissect and slash...
Limb from limb...
Stenching gash...
07 Vomited Anal Tract (01:45)
Oral eruption
Rectal extroversion...
Your vagus implodes, as nausea strikes
Savaging your body in terminal retch
Violent spasms and decaying enzymes
Engulf your throat as you belch
Intestinal disturbance, your ileum turns inside-out
Your duodenum is thrust up towards your mouth
Your pancreas excretes stale septic pus
Your whole digestive system is now a sticky mush
Rectal vomit in your thorax
Retch your anal tract
Liquidized oesophagus mixes with bloodied excretion
As you pathetically gasp for breath
The stench of hot faeces scorch your nose
As you violently vomit to death
Your intestines are rising, up towards your throat
Stale bile escaping through your bloodied nose
Your colon digested into acidic slush
Your tongue gargling on your dislocated anus
08 Festerday (00:22)
Tear out your intestines
Cut your liver into two
Throttle your heart
Till it's swollen and blue
Puncture your flesh
Skewer your eyes
Leave you to fester
Then eat you alive
09 Fermenting Innards (02:35)
Your pulverized torso languishes in its pool of pus
Minced, cancerous viscera - gore seeps from the guts
My fetid fetish is to excavate the moulding rot
I drool my gastric juices as I chomp on you blood-clots
Fermenting innards, bubbling with rot
Alcoholic pus, dissolves the wooden box
I gouge into the chest's cavity to rip out the intestines
Slivering soft entrails to release the foaming secretions
I suck up the concoction and eat the decay
With cankered disgorgement I excrete my gurgling prey
Bile, chyme and blood in the offal effervesce
I eviscerate the bowels and drink the clotted cess
10 Excreted Alive (01:21)
Eaten alive
Munched into pulp
Premature necropsy
Comes closer with each gulp
Brain not fully dead
Decrepit splattered libs
Mass ensanguined spasms
Excretion now begins...
...Semi-conscious human faeces
...Semi-digested squirming pieces
...Semi-animate in excrement
...Semi-terminal constipation
11 Suppuration (02:19)
The rotting corpse lies on a mortuary slab
Pus starts to burst from each visceral scab
Body temperature drops, bone seizure takes place
As the discharge oozes from the boils on the face
Suppurated - Pyosisified
Pustulated - Soggy insides
The cataleptic remains incite the suppuration
Giving way to the stench of anal emanation
This repulsive concoction drips onto the floor
Cleansing the viscous enzymes of the body's inner core
12 Foeticide (02:46)
Plugged into the socket
Leads attached to twitching skin
Ignite the squirming foetus
To dissolve it from within
The uterus aspirated...foeticide
Suction catheter eradicating...your insides
Foeticides done daily
Frying them inside the womb
Electrocuting embryos
In their sterile tomb
Your cervix an abscess...foeticide
Pumped out by your gynaecologist...your insides
Spasmodic convulsions of pleasure are gained
Pumping the boiling gunge as you languish in pain
Scouring out the womb from the effervescing rot
Scrubbing-brush comes in handy to clean out all the clots
Electrodes buzz with power
Visceral muscle is charred black
Melting bone, frying aqueous humour
A dignified death is what you lack
14 Feast on Dismembered Carnage (01:27)
Bodies dismembered, corpses desecrated
Carcasses liquidized and minced with hatred
Brains are splattered, strewn limbs and heads
Blood has been spurted as the arteries were shredded
Eyes have been impaled, flayed skin in strips
Intestines and guts from the body have been ripped
Stench of sweet blood, bones have been crunched
Festering gore is eaten for lunch
Parasitic carnivorous carrion, your gastrointestinal tract,
your prey's cremator
Bloody neo-cannibalistic, bloodfeed masticator
Rigor sanguined fleshfeast, gourging on festered entrails and warm meat
Devouring cold offal, necro-sentient mortis feed
Mutilated organs, the meat-cleaver is raised
Falls to mash the head and rip up the face
Throats slit with vengeance, flesh stripped to the bone
Your death is terrible, painful and slow
Drooling palate
Terrible odorous mess
The repulsive stench
Of roasting flesh
Sterile carnage, dried sanguined personae desecration
Scooping out the entrails, violent entrail emancipation
The taste of violent gorge hot on your breath
Digesting the succulent corpse in your succous death
15 Splattered Cavities (01:54)
Erupted thoracic savies - serum, pus and offal
Perspiring ulcerous chancre - splattered on your wall
Necro-cellular lesions - the stench of staining scabs
Scraped up by medics, and wrapped in plastic bags
Exploding pus and bile, abdominal saliva sprays
Coughing out your intestines, and rubbing them in your face
Carbuncles oozing sanguous, mortified entrails and rot
Pieced together for autopsy, in your wooden box
Frantic pelvic gut-wrench
Splattered guts and gore
Seeping disembowelment
Mopped up off the floor
Pelvic insides now rest in your perineum
Splattered gore seeping from your orifices like hot sebum
Pancreatic juices
Internal digestive mess
Acidic dripping spittle
And squelching moist flesh
Pulverized thoracic cavity
Your rib-cage is snapped
Rupturing internal organs
Crushed in your diaphragm
Your lungs are collapsed
As your abdominal cavity is splattered
Terminal back-ache paralysing
As your spine is shattered
16 Psychopathologist (01:18)
Effervescing entrails corroding after years
The stench of the canker brings me no tears
Festering tumours of cancerous decay
Gnawed and chewed by maggots with malicious hate
I like to slide my hand inside your stomach
And rip out the putrid remains,
Drink the pus and munch on the internal organs
Until all the casket is drained.
It's fun being a pathologist - slicing up corpses
Especially when they have just been exhumed,
I like doing autopsies on festering carcasses -
I get high sniffing on all the fumes
[Solo: Inquisitive Brutality]
The sound of rancid juices sloshing around your coffin
The mould and the gore remind me of that you're rotting
Congealed blood clotted around both sets of veins
The beautiful colour of your decomposing brain
17 Burnt to a Crisp (02:43)
Torched to a pimple Peeling skin and tissue Inflammable rectal gases Scalding your sinews Charbroiled to blackened char Smoked, sauted and black Blistering flaking tissue Insalvageable by skin graft Fused into a mess Dribbling cartilage and fumes Your body shrivelling Your fingers beginning to prune Burnt to a cinder Your body charred Incinerated carbon Molten as tar Smouldering ashes Scorched entrails Carbonated dust Cremated remains Burnt to a crisp Your fat's on fire Devouring you whole Like a cadaver-stoked pyre Charred to the bone Your flesh is burnt Tissues molten Bodily gases inert Human inferno Blazing eruption Evaporating marrow Spontaneous combustion Burnt to a crisp Your hair is singed Devouring your scalp Receding your fringe Dripping flesh and fat Spreads like an irritating rash Your fingers melting As you vainly scratch
18 Pungent Excruciation (02:31)
Sanguinary disinterment Necrobiotic rash Gnawing, throbbing anguish The gullet is now mashed Pungent excruciation Flesh mummified by lice Amputated contusion Help yourself to a slice... Contamination... Strangulation... Mutilation... Gangrenous abscesses Paralysis sets in More carnage and bloodshed And the reek of molten skin Frenzied detruncation Dispeptic, charred and black Terminal putrescence Psychotics carve and hack Osteoporous enzymes release deadly secretions As the clotted parasites devour the excretion Emanation, suppuration - blood starts to gush My nocturnal dysentry is unleashed on this mush
20 Oxidised Razor Masticator (03:12)
Chomping and splicing, your gums sliced to shreds
Tattered bloody ribbons, incisored skin is shred
Scraping on sore teeth, cracking and chipping
Shredding and mincing raw nerve endings
Salivating - sanguis, phlegm, froth and foam
Masticating - your mandible stripped to the bone
Mangling your tongue, bloody torn and dripping
The swollen savage muscle frayed and blistering
Your vocal chords severed, your lips are mutilated
Masticating carved palate as your mouth is grated
Only raw gargles croak from your throat
A trickling death-rasp as you choke
A silly grin carved from ear to ear
Spurting mucus and tongue as your wind-pipe tears
Gaping and sore
The rusty razors bore
Skin hangs and seeps
Peptic ulcers bleed
Your mouth is a sea of cartilage, rabid saliva bleeds
Swallowing shredded tongue and pulverized, crunching teeth
Respirating a bolus of rusty razor blades
Asphyxiating bloody garotte, tearing your jugular vein
22 Malignant Defecation (02:15)
Dried, rotting, flaking, rancid flesh
Crumbling tissue - nothing left
Cancerous, mouldy, septic infestation
Smouldering decay of defecation
Your bowels now play host to pestilent decay
Waiting dormantly, it knows you're easy prey
See the corpse, smell the rot
Rigor mortis sets in like a frost
Lacerated arteries, entrails in a mess
The dry, stale smell of long rotted flesh
See the corpse, smell the warmth
As its cold, grey insides fester and burn
The guts may melt, but the torso remains
As the jellified innards turn into methane
[Finale:] ultimate excretion of rabid globular neoplasm
Carico i commenti... con calma
Altre recensioni
Di Cronos
"Reek Of Putrefaction è un album opprimente, estremo e carico di atmosfere insane e macabre."
"La tecnica dei tre musicisti all’epoca non era il massimo ma a differenza di molti gruppi moderni i nostri sapevano prendere in mano uno strumento."
Di Apple_of_sodomY
"'Reek of Putrefaction' è come un pezzo di pane riempito di chiodi, che appena masticato ti porta orribili dolori."
"L'atmosfera creata è oscura quanto umoristica, ma non di quegli humor che fanno ridere."
Di JohnHolmes
Sconvolgente. Questo è l’aggettivo che più si addice a 'Reek of Putrefaction'.
Violenza, velocità e perversione: non aspettatevi un album ultra-tecnico, ma un vero massacro sonoro.
Di assurdino
La voce del cantante è assurda, quasi parodia dell'esorcista, vien da ridere davvero.
Mi volevo solo essere libero e selvaggio... invece non mi son fatto che due risate.
Di Spettri
Musica che come il goregrind tutto non è da prendere seriamente altrimenti ci sarebbero grossi problemi per il malcapitato ascoltatore ad avere di queste fantasie macabre.
Do il massimo dei voti per l'importanza storica e per l'evoluzione di un genere come il goregrind questo album ha messo le sue fondamenta.