(Note: This is the "lost review" which was published during Metal Month in October of last year, but somehow vanished from my journal. Seems a shame to waste it so, although Metal Month is but a fading memory now, here's the original review.)
Heartwork --- Carcass --- 1993 (Earache)
Is there really a term "melodic death metal"? The two seem incompatible somehow, and yet, after listening to In Flames I would wonder. There's certainly a world --- a galaxy --- of difference between "Sounds from a playground fading" and "Heretic", for example. So can the sub-genre be split even further, subdivided into other sounds and influences? Well yes of course it can: death metal already encompasses elements of technical, progressive, doom, and of course goregrind, deathgrind and any other grind you care to mention, to say nothing of deathcore and even death'n'roll! So melodic death metal doesn't seem that much a stretch.
I'm taking a listen to this album for one reason only really: I love the cool sleeve designed by HR Giger. Now that may seem shallow and simplistic, but you know, I don't have the time (nor the inclination) to listen to every band's full discography, and unlike The Batlord and Unknown Soldier I don't know all of these bands intimately already, so I'm sort of puddle-hopping here, not quite throwing a dart at a board but certainly making guesses, sometimes educated sometimes not, at what might be the best example of a particular artiste's work, what's considered their seminal album, or on occasions, just the one that is likely to make my ears bleed the least.
This one comes recommended, so I'm willing to give it a go. It's all quite tasteful really for the opener, "Buried dreams", with decent chugging guitar work that stays on the road rather than careening madly over the edge and into the abyss, but then when the vocals come in, well, let's just say they're a little disappointing. Still, I'm sort of getting used, or immune perhaps, to death vocals so it doesn't turn me off when Jeff Walker spits and growls the lyric at me. I'm trying to listen to the music. And it's pretty good really. "Carnal forge" is a lot faster and confused, with the vocal totally indecipherable to me. But then a really nice guitar solo cuts through the confusion and the track takes on a different identity, before plunging back into the maelstrom it emerged briefly from.
"No love lost" could I suppose be said to characterise my own relationship with death metal, definitely not a genre I could ever see myself getting into. Again it's got good guitar parts and some fine shredding from Michael Arnott, but not too much else to recommend it, from my girly point of view. The vocals certainly don't help. The title track then seems to want to compete for the fastest, hardest opening of a track I've yet heard, and still it settles down to some really good fretwork before Walker comes in to snarl all over it again. Nice double guitar attack near the end but it doesn't last for more than a few seconds.
I guess I could see the "melodic" side of this if it wasn't for the roaring and screaming of Jeff Walker, because the two guitarists are really good, Jeff can play the bass and the drummer is certainly competent (sorry but that's all I can ever say about drummers: I couldn't tell you who's a great one and who's a bad one). Even so, it's again sort of sliding by without making too much of an impression on me, as "Embodiment" slips into "This mortal coil" and on into "Arbeit macht fleish" without any real difference making itself apparent to me. I believe, unless I miss my guess, that the title of that last one is German for "Freedom through labour" and is at the entrance to the notorious Nazi concentration camp, Auschwitz. Other than that, I have no interest in this track. Or most of the others that came before it.
Nor, in all likelihood, the ones to follow, of which there are three. "Blind bleeding the blind" (see what they did there?) at least has some interesting stop/start guitar and some pretty slick solos, and slows down from the breakneck speed of the last few songs, while "Doctrinal expletives" doesn't leave too much to the imagination, and the album closes on perhaps a rather appropriate track entitled "Death certificate", which certainly has a lot of power and ends the album with a final karate chop to the neck, though for me it's more being put out of my misery really.
TRACKLISTING
1. Buried dreams
2. Carnal forge
3. No love lost
4. Heartwork
5. Embodiment
6. This mortal coil
7. Arbeit macht fleisch
8. Blind bleeding the blind
9. Doctrinal expletives
10. Death certificate
It's a struggle to see how this kind of music can qualify as melodic under any criteria you care to mention, though it can't be denied the guitar work is at times quite superb. But unlike In Flames, there are few hooks here and less real melody, with every track just pounding along as fast as is humanly possible and Jeff Walker screeching and snarling over the whole thing. Never gonna get this, never.
I know, I know! Go put your lipstick on and shave your legs. Well to be honest I'd be happier doing that than listening to this kind of metal any longer than I have to. It's not quite torture but it's certainly not my idea of enjoyment either.