Carcass – Necroticism: Descanting the Insalubrious

(Earache Records, 1991, 8 tracks, 48 minutes, 3 seconds, by Adam McAuley)

Prime death metal that was always a cut above the rest is what Carcass offered and their style easily peaked with this masterful work that put them right at a creative high overall. It was a masterpiece that combined veracity with complexity making for one of death metal’s finest moments and an easy premium within their discopgraphy. Necroticism will always be remembered for the ways it smoothly spliced together killer hooks with textbook type lyrics that had a nice knowledge of medical terminology.

The first thing one will notice when comparing this work to other premiums of the death metal genre is Necroticism’s jagged complexity which has a manner of working itself into your skin well. Songs like “Carneous Cacoffiny” have a manner of implementing obtuse beats into the mix nicely and constantly keeping one interested.

We can sense an aggressive tone to their proceedings here, but there is also a melodious edge to be the most balanced overall portion of their discography. The nature of the album takes variety as a key trait as well to deliver an experience that never gets tiring, but remains constantly vigorating throughout its length.

Again, when directly comparing this album to other works of the same band, we see this one coming out on top because of a focus upon making an album that works greater as a whole as earlier efforts were concentrated too much upon aggression and later ones upon melody and this comes up as a positive point.

And again the interest one has with the band is concentrated upon their Necroticism album and the combination of their great ideas making an overall masterpiece that affects you. This is shown to culminate in one of the finer ending songs “Forensic Clinicism” that brings all the hooks together towards a satisfying finale.

Lyrically, a medical like dictionary approach is used to deliver lyrics that interestingly convey to you the ideals of body parts, for example, towards the furthering of a scientific knowledge. This is one of the slants of Necroticism that I found added to the complexity they were trying to convey.

On the whole, Necroticism: Descanting the Insalubrious is indeed the finest moment in Carcass’ discography and demonstrates them to be the finest of the death metal genre for a short time with a varied approach that brings out the best of the band. We can see their thoughtfulness blossom into one of the greatest albums of the nineteen nineties as well and a work that could be considered one of the all time greats.