Carcass

Swansong (Earache)
by Chaz Thorndike

This Swansong is not a moment too soon. This is a Carcass picked over by a major label and left to rot. And rot it should. The soaring, emotional guitarwork of Heartwork was so melodic, yet shredding, even a wholesale warehouse like Sony thought they could make a few buckets full of money off it. But those swooping guitar melodies – like hawks wrestling playfully and chasing each other through the sky, drawing blood in the process – are long gone. Heartwork makes Swansong look like a limp dick. For some reason, Carcass chose not to challenge or further their well-established technical abilities and decided instead to rehash every Iron Maiden and Judas Priest riff they could lay their hands on. There are also elements of Megadeth politics, Anthrax “mosh” chords, and an uncomfortable amount of late ’80s metal all wrapped up in this crisply-produced drinking coaster. Jeff Walker’s raspy snarl sounds as good as ever, as long as you don’t decipher his rebel yell lyrics, but it doesn’t save this disc from being what it is – the ignorably pitiful last words of Carcass.