Swansong

Not everything happens immediately. For some time I've been meaning to buy the Carcass album Swansong. I'd already heard a couple songs from it, including the amusing "Keep On Rotting In The Free World", and I kind of liked that sound.

I have a hair trigger when it comes to Carcass's earlier grindy stuff. When they're good, they're brilliant, as in "Corporeal Jigsore Quandary", "Inpropagation" and the like. But when they're off, that sloppy grindy nastiness gets old in a hurry (let's be honest and admit that some, if not all, of the "Peel Sessions" blow chunks).

Apparently they got tired of it too, because starting with Heartwork and especially on Swansong, Carcass moved away from grindcore-based death metal and turned into what could best be described as a heavier-than-usual rock band with a death metal ethic but not necessarily a death metal sound - a thrashy version of Def Leppard in an ugly mood, one might say, heavy enough but not atonal in the way that really heavy death metal can get.

I happen to like that sound, but the early hardcore fans of Carcass view it as a disgusting sellout of the most appalling sort. But it strikes me that Swansong is a good entree into death metal - if you can listen to Swansong and find it halfway decent, you may find further explorations in death metal of interest. If you listen to Swansong and find it too heavy or contrived, well, best that you didn't pay money for something truly heavy like Descanting the Insalubrious.

Back when I used to play the guitar and imagined that sensitive pickups, "Blue Steel" strings and lots of distortion pedals were what made one metal, I kept trying to write my own song (one can cover Tesla and Metallica for so long) and I now realize that the song I was trying (and failing) to write was something very much like "Polarized" or "R**K The Vote".