Review by Daniel for Cancer - The Sins of Mankind (1993)

I first became aware of English death metallers Cancer through their 1990 debut album “To The Gory End” through underground metal radio programming in the very early 90’s & quite liked what I heard. Their simple brand of death metal wasn't terribly challenging but was undeniably catchy & seemed to tick a lot of my boxes, if not with a particularly bold pen. I’d go on to seek out their 1991 sophomore album “Death Shall Rise” once it hit the shelves & found it to be a slight improvement on their first-up effort, largely thanks to the contribution of super-talented hired gun guitar shredder James Murphy who I was already quite infatuated with after falling in love with his work on Death’s “Spiritual Healing” & Obituary’s “Cause of Death”. So, given my generally positive experiences with Cancer to the time, I think it’s fair to say that I was an interested observer when it came to 1993’s “The Sins of Mankind” third album. They certainly hadn’t knocked it out of the park as yet but I felt that the potential was there for something more significant. There must still have been a little hesitation though as once again I found myself holding off from throwing my hard-earned cash down on the counter, instead seeking out a dubbed cassette copy of the record through the tape trading scene.

The production job on “The Sins of Mankind” isn’t exactly brilliant. The guitar tone is a touch flat & a little bit messy which plays a significant role in the album’s overall tone. It’s certainly not a dealbreaker but it’s worth mentioning regardless. James Murphy’s involvement with Cancer was unfortunately limited to “Death Shall Rise” too so here we see the band trying to make their own way without the oversight of such an undeniable musical highlight. I would imagine it must have been quite an imposing proposition for new axeman Barry Savage who had no prior credentials on his resume & clearly didn’t have anything like the talent of Murphy. It would really be up to the rest of the band to step up to the plate a bit in support given that they’d stayed largely within themselves on “Death Shall Rise” which was a pretty simple, meat-&-potatoes example of the old-school death metal sound.

So, how did Cancer fair in this endeavour then? Well, I think it’s fair to say that the success or failure of “The Sins of Mankind” is a little divisive with fans. For my personally though, I really needed Cancer to push themselves a bit outside of their comfort zone if they were to maintain my attention in a post-Murphy world & I feel that they’ve managed to achieve that to a reasonable extent with their third album. They’d added just enough in the way of compositional complexity to make “The Sins of Mankind” the next logical step for the band rather than a poor man’s “Death Shall Rise”. There can be no doubt at all that Savage struggles a little on lead guitar duties but the riffs are generally very good with drummer Carl Stokes contributing a rock-solid platform for the rest of the band to work off. Stokes is often criticised for his tendency to want to play in mainly fairly safe, mid-paced territory but I think that’s a touch unfair because it’s clearly a strength of his with his double-kick being both precise & powerful. When he tries to up the ante a little it’s rarely as effective so I can hardly blame him for this approach. I’ve always enjoyed rhythm guitarist John Walker’s signature death growl too as it’s always easily intelligible, despite possessing the required level of monstrosity.

The tracklisting on “The Sins of Mankind” is very consistent with no obvious duds amongst the eight songs on offer. There are a couple of numbers that stand out from the rest as clear highlights in opener “Cloak of Darkness” (my personal favourite) & the equally impressive “Patchwork Destiny” & they both appear fairly early in the album which does give it a slightly top-heavy feel. Neither can lay claim to being genuinely classic death metal tunes though & this is a part of the reason why “The Sins of Mankind” has been destined for the also-rans category. In fact, I’d suggest that they wee the very definition of a third-tier player at this stage of their musical evolution to be honest. I find all three of their early 90’s albums to be pleasant enough but none challenge me much or provide me with enough in the way of excitement to see me claiming them as essential releases for fans of the genre.

Don’t get me wrong, I do have quite a bit of time for “The Sins of Mankind” & actually don’t think it’s all that far behind my favourite Cancer release in “Death Shall Rise” to tell you the truth. The added ambition in the riff construction has worked quite well in ensuring that the record doesn’t simply sound like a Murphy-less “Death Shall Rise”. With a better production job it may well have made a bigger play at the death metal market of the time too. As it is though, I find it to be an entertaining (if inessential) example of the classic old-school death metal sound. Nothing more, nothing less.

For fans of Massacre, Master & Death’s first couple of albums.