Reviews list for Carcass - Torn Arteries (2021)

It can be hard to recognise Carcass as the band that produced such ugly classics as Reek of Putrefaction, Symphonies... and the mighty Necroticism... given the band nowadays occupy a kind of "dad metal" status that actually does them a disservice in all honesty.  I got introduced to the band by Heartwork, a pinnacle of melodic and yet still extreme enough to please my tendencies death metal.  Acknowledging this to be a far cry from what came before it, Heartwork still draws the most linear line from where the band where back in 1993 to where they are in 2022.

Torn Arteries reminds me a lot of Heartwork if I am honest, even though layers have literally been stripped off in terms of increasing the accessibility of Carcass' sound, it still retains the ruined structures of that once grinding wonder that was Carcass embracing a more melodic edge.  Torn Arteries lifts off from where Surgical Steel and latterly Despicable landed basically, retaining the ever-threatening whisper of Jeff Walker whilst still exemplifying the wonderous guitar talent of Bill Steer.  There is not a lot here to hark back to the late-eighties and early-nineties Carcass barring the ongoing obsession with gore, but it is still so clearly Carcass no mater how much more cleaner and polished things are.

Whilst Carcass in 2021 are most certainly not Carcass in 1988, it is hard to argue that they have lost all semblance of what they were.  The melodicism that is so rich and memorable cannot completely hide the unattractive roots of the band.  I think the real enemy of the old Carcass is perhaps the repetition present on their last three releases as they do all feel like a rehash of similar ideas that are no longer able to be developed into any particularly new direction.  Flashes of progression occur on Torn Arteries like the opening to In God We Trust, but this soon settles into the familiar, groovy familiarity and melodicism that we have all come to expect.  On album number seven it does feel like Carcass are teasing us with such snippets of promise only to reveal them to be lulls of false hope as they quickly adopt standard formation.

Although they are beyond the "dad metal" tag I have seen thrown around in conversations about them in recent years, they are most certainly a band in a comfort zone of their own making who are not interested in straying away from this tried and tested formula.  I still find the record to be entertaining enough and I am by no means repulsed by what they have become, I just long for the early days of revulsion that their initial material brought.