Our first story deals with a subculture of heavy metal music that some feel is sending a dangerous message to your kids.

The forces of evil on the dark side of devil, right?

And I want to talk tonight about the devil and demons and witches and Wizards.

And we just.

Mix it up with hardcore and aggression and come out with something.

We face an original sound.

Loud, fast, heavy.

You know well what?

Do you got?

What do you got?

Welcome back to another episode of the Riff Worship podcast where we talk all things who, what, when, where, why, how?

The fucking riff.

Today, join with me, as always, my two friends in music and life, Austin Paulson, Justin Swindle.

How are you guys doing?

Good to see you, another member of the bald community, back with us again.

You can't have too many on at one time because you know things just start to happen.

Too much glare.

Too much glare.

And then we start to multiply.

It's like, it's, it's like getting, it's like getting a Mogwai wet.

That just starts to happen.

I was joking in our in our group chat that Jack was pooping with the door open when he joined the chat, trying to assert his ball dominance right from the get go.

Listen, that's how it works.

That's how it works.

One time is all it takes.

It was great.

I mean, you know, I it was such a fun chat and it's good to like be on the call with people who are just as fucking dorky about this shit as we are.

And I I love we talked about like the most like brutal, like technically proficient kind of grind record.

And then all of his recommendations were basically like ambient kind of jazz, like saxophone type stuff, which I've been enjoying like all week long.

I think it's been perfect for like this kind of fucking dreary ass weather we've been experiencing.

But.

And you've had a really good week, too.

Yeah, your your week has been.

Not bad at all.

Everything's good, everything's fine.

Anyway, man, we are talking about a record that is loaded with shit today, and that shit is riffs it is.

I was hard pressed to find one that I didn't enjoy.

And I'm talking about this wonderful gem of a record, 1993's hard work.

She sure is beautiful.

It is a very divisive record.

I would say a friend of the show, John Hoffman, is not the biggest fan of this record.

Oh, he loves.

No, he loves.

This record hey loves hookers, man.

Yeah, I don't know.

There's, you know, he's definitely in the camp of folks who maybe kind of stand by like the band's earlier material.

And you know, as soon as they started to incorporate more tuneful, melodic technical elements into their songwriting, he just kind of like out one in, out, one in, out, fucked, in, one ear in.

One ear out there in the ear.

Out through the door in through the outdoor in.

Through the outdoor.

Yeah, John, no like.

John No, like me, like me, like a lot me, me like so much me went backwards.

No, but seriously, this was my first time hearing the band Carcass, I read.

I bought a copy of Choosing Death from a Hastings Music in 2004, and I still have that copy.

It's right over here.

It's falling the fuck apart.

But I saw that cover, I read about the band and went, that's the record.

I have to get whatever that is on the cover.

I have to get it.

And to me it looks like, you know, obviously a spine, a peace sign.

And it, I initially thought it was like somebody's Gam Gam's cigarette pack of the top with a little latch.

But it's, it's actually not.

But to me, it will always be that, man, what a great fucking record to like entry into death metal or melodic death metal or even some of the early Scandinavian melodic black metal that's out there.

You know, this record to me is held in extremely high regard and is also held in regard by many others that came before and after.

And I had to go backwards with the band.

Like this was my starting point for Carcass.

So going back and hearing Necrotism and symphonies and fucking Re Computer Faction throughout throughout the time period, because I think I bought, sorry, I downloaded artwork through Limewire individual songs because that's the only access I had to it at first.

Then I found a copy of Re Computer Faction and bought it.

So it's like, all right, here's here's finesse, here's like precision.

And then this thing that is growing took taken years to grow on me with that.

Like I love symphonies a lot.

I necrotisms of like a almost prog death to a certain extent, but like Reek is the only one that really has taken this long to grow on me.

But this band's great.

I I think everything about this band is fun.

The early leanings of this band are pretty hilarious.

Any interview I've seen with all these guys, they're they're fun to watch, they're fun to listen to.

But that's enough on that shit.

Swindle.

I want to ask you first, do you have any familiarity with Carcass aside from name?

If you do, when did you first hear them?

And if not, is this your first time hearing?

Well, well.

I I don't have any familiarity with the band and this was my first time hearing them.

First first record.

Did you go back at all yet or is this we're just sticking with hard work as of right now?

I listen to the one before hard work like right before this episode.

Sure, that's Mike's first record with the band too.

That that one was actually the last one I think I picked up getting into the band.

I think I had a swan song even before I purchased Necrotism.

It was just whatever was accessible for me at the time.

And luckily when I got into the band, that's right before they started releasing all those great digipack editions that had the DVD and and all of that with it.

So those were starting to become much more accessible.

But what did you think?

Obviously we'll talk about the record, but what did you think upon first listen of this band?

Before like listening to or before reading the notes?

I was like, this definitely sounds like it came out in the early 90s.

Not production wise but like it sounds like they listen to Pantera.

Sure.

And you know, I'm glad you bring that up because upon doing the research was that was the first time that it ever clicked to me of like, Oh yeah, there's kind of those parts in here.

Never dawned on me.

I was just like, this is what this band sounds like.

But upon reading it, and once we get into this, there's some noticeable shit on this record that goes, Oh yeah, they definitely listen to like, Vulgar Display of Power a lot.

Yeah, or even Cowboys.

Yeah, right.

Exactly.

Austin, You You and I have talked about Carcass for years, but what was your first foray into this band?

I would say I think I kind of first got into him when they started doing the reunion stuff in like 2013, 2014, because we caught them on the Inked and Steel tour, which had Carcass headlining, Obituary, Exhumed and Noisome.

I think Macabre was on another select dates, but we caught that tour at the exit in and so I was like kind of just dabbling because you're like, oh, well, we got to see this, like there's no way we're going to miss this.

And we did.

We did the advantage to miss Noysim and exhumed.

I think we managed to get there for like part of obituary set, but we we caught carcass and I mean it was heavy.

It was it was almost like they'd you know, at the time not even knowing and what I remember now, it's like they had never really even like skipped a beat, like they just they were tight.

It was funny, like all of the shit in between songs, just absolutely hilarious.

And we got a lot of that in the research with the notes and everything.

Like it's, it's so funny.

Like this band is clearly cares about the craft of songwriting and what they're doing, but they also like kind of don't give a fuck like about it.

Like nothing is sacred, nothing serious.

No matter of fact, at that show, I remember I leaned into you and I, this was after vocalist Jeff Walker had made some sort of statement and I looked at you and I went Justin Swindle.

That's all I said to him was just like Justin Swindle, like he would die because it's very like dry, almost silly Mel Brooks shit that was coming out of his mouth and went, all right, this is perfect.

It was great.

So, you know, through that experience and then going back and, and, you know, kind of combing through the the discography, I mean, I definitely started here, worked my way back.

I would say as of right now.

And again, we can talk about this at a later point in the episode, but I'd say this definitely stands up there.

Like I, I think you could kind of pair this and Necroticism obviously together.

I think Necroticism has like some really cool kind of more, you said Prague.

Like I, I feel like there's definitely more, you know, a space, the right word, but they get to play around a little bit more, which I like.

This is like very I this is a very refined version of that.

I'm a huge fan of symphonies of sickness sickness.

I think it's like such a fucking great record, an amazing record for like what that era of the band means.

So yeah, I, I love that we get to talk about this.

We actually did in our very first episodes, talked about hard work, the song, and touched on some of the details of this.

But this will kind of serve as a more thorough kind of exploration of the band's history of this album.

So I'm glad we get to actually do that today.

Yeah, I think this is this is one of those records that there's so much that comes from it and there's so much, there's so much more about this band then you you ultimately know and realize and who helped create and who helped write and and all of this shit.

And this is there are so many bands that formed after listening to this or even the another album that's held in the same regard.

It says which is at the gate Slaughter of the Soul, which will get talked about at some point.

But those two records are kind of helped form a sub genre.

But they didn't start out that way.

It didn't start out as this tuned up melodic death metal band or whatever you want to call it.

Just sounds like heavy metal to me.

Just sounds like refined, very catchy heavy metal to me.

But man, the roots of this band started way back in 1985.

Yeah, oh, Liverpool, England, you know, just a small little skiffle band, just just playing on jugs and playing.

Playing in Hamburg, Germany at the.

Oh, man, Carcass mania when they came to America.

But no, Dill's right.

The band Carcass essentially formed, I'll say formed in 1985, or at least like the foundations of what we know as Carcass and Liverpool, England guitarist Bill Steer, drummer Ken Owen.

These guys had known each other since they were like, I guess for lack of a better American term, like kindergarten.

They would have known each other since childhood.

And they kind of started this idea for a band and it didn't really take off initially and actually kind of dissolved.

It wasn't until maybe a few later, years later and a few other projects that Carcass would kind of rear its head again.

But Bill Steer and Ken, they were very much into a lot of the traditional kind of heavy metal leaning bands that you might know, Judas Priest, Fist Tigers of Panting, a lot of which, you know, I think they would dispute what this record sounds like.

But I think you could make the argument that a lot of those early leanings are are found on this record as well.

It wasn't until they got into more extreme music like Slayer.

One band that definitely comes up a lot is Siege, kind of like the power violence, kind of just ridiculous, kind of noisy band from here in the States was mentioned Genocide, which later became Repulsion.

Also mentioned they had some of those early releases, early demos and releases by Death.

So kind of hearing all of this extreme music and wanting to be a part of that and, and just essentially start your own band.

And so I I think that's kind of where the idea came from.

But so Carcass dissolves.

Bill Steer ends up joining a local kind of DB Discharge clone called Disattack.

He performed on their demo A Bomb drops from 1986.

Disattack's bassist left and they got in this guy who'd been recently kicked out of like kind of a thrashy hardcore band called Electro Hippies, which I couldn't help but think that was the The Muppet band name.

I know it's not, but it's like probably the rival band of Electric Teeth.

It's it's electric Wizards alternative like doppelganger, right?

Like the evil doppelganger.

So incomes bassist Jeff Walker joining Disc attack, they kind of at at around the same time, Bill Steer also joins Napalm Death, another soon to be legendary local grind death metal band.

So with that, I don't know if it was exactly like, I think there was just a shift happening all around in the local scene.

So they wanted to kind of maybe follow in that kind of realm, listening to a lot of like death metal and extreme music.

So they wanted to shift up their sound a little bit.

So they invited Bill's old friend Ken to kind of come on on the drums.

They got Jeff and then they had a disattacks original singer kind of rounding out this four piece and then readopting the carcass name.

And so they did end up putting out a demo as a four piece called flesh ripping Sonic torment, which, you know, I will argue this.

I think it the the quality of the demo, the musically sounds way better than Reek.

I think it sounds better than Reek.

I fucking agree when you when you buy whatever copy of Reek that you get, maybe aside from a vinyl record.

I believe it comes with the demo.

The expanded edition I bought later on had it and I agree the demo sounds better than the actual recording.

And I will say I don't, I don't necessarily.

I think it's Sanji Sumner was the original vocalist of this band.

You know, it's it's cool that you could you can kind of like peep what this might have ended up like.

You get a, you know, little taste of the history of this band.

They may have played a few shows together, but ultimately they just became a three piece after a while.

It's it's wild to think too that Bill's name is tied with Napalm Death.

I believe he played on the B side of scum.

He did.

He obviously isn't.

Carcass helped essentially form the roots of what this British Grand Corps movement was.

Yeah, he wasn't a original member of Napalm, but he was the first group of NAP or first member of Napalm.

Like when the band was starting to move forward, right?

You know, you had Lee who went on the form Cathedral then do Rise Above Records and and all this shit.

So, like, it all kind of starts there.

And I'd be surprised if early Carcass shows didn't take place at the Mermaid.

Oh, I'm sure, I'm sure, I'm sure.

They had to have 100%.

You know, it's talking about how this band formed and these guys being kids and growing up together, essentially all meeting by the time they're like 16 or 17 years old and seeing some of the photos and choosing death of how young these kids were when they started like primary school and that shit.

You definitely know that these guys did not form their band while pissing at a urinal in the bathroom of a club like a Bolt Thrower did.

Yeah, another big one from the scene.

Yep, I think really what kind of sets this band apart, you know, kind of playing into the really like tongue in cheek, kind of piss pissing people off sort of mentality that you'll find with just the interviews and and really just the themes of this early stuff is that, you know, the you know, records like Reek and symphonies, they kind of contain all of these very graphic, like medically accurate, you know, lyrics and and imagery.

I mean the first couple of releases they, you know, have like essentially got censored because you can't put like these colleges of like mutilated guts and gore on them.

But it was, from what I understand, like kind of a direct opposition to some of like the themes and lyrics that you'd find in other death metal bands.

Like they were knocked down with like the misogyny and like the Satanism aspect of a lot of death metal of that time.

So when Ken, Ken is kind of surprisingly a lot of where this early work and inspiration comes from 'cause he was a, he had a master in biology.

And he even says like, if I'd it wasn't going to be in Carcass, I'd probably be a doctor at this fucking point.

But you're kind of rummaging through these dictionaries and really utilizing all of these very descriptive, grotesque words.

So yeah, it's just, but it was just really kind of, this is so ridiculous, we have to do it.

There's, there's, there's bits and pieces from choosing Death that I, in preparation for the episode, just jogged my memory with that of like Ken sitting down with his.

It's either Ken or maybe it's Bill's sisters medical textbook and they're going through and they're like let's go scan these photos, let's use this, let's use this, let's go.

To Jeff's sister or something was like this or something like that, either way.

Either way, like they're all just sitting and I know they're just fucking cackling the entire time they're doing this because it's so ridiculous, right?

And it is funny to think that this early era era of the band in this early period, it's kind of what the band is still known as.

They're still known as this like kind of gore influenced grind ban, which they haven't really been a grind ban since the the first record.

Truthfully, if you want to say that like yeah, like symphonies is 5050 I.

Don't even yeah, I don't even know if they would have.

I don't know.

All throughout this band's career, I don't know if they'd like really like the grind and death kind of tagline just because they they were like, well, we're just playing what we're just playing what we know.

We're just playing what we like so.

And there are so many bands that have created their their bases off of the type of band they want to become off of these first few records, right?

You don't get exhumed without it.

You don't get general surgery a few years later.

You don't get.

Got tons of gore grind bands that are out there and there's a a great tribute band that Relapse released many years later called the County Medical Examiner's and it was a tribute to the 1st 2 records.

And it sounds honestly like someone just took everything that was on symphonies, wadded it up, put it in a blender and regurgitated it and it's great.

Like, it's a lot of fucking fun, but just the fact that these guys are kind of taking the piss out on like death and grind and all this stuff early on is very fitting to who they are.

So with all the themes and imagery in mind, Bill Steer, obviously being in Napalm Death, you have the E Rake connection.

Digby Pearson, founder of E Rake Records, gets a hold of the demo, looks at some of the lyrics and was like instantly like we got a record, a record like we have to.

This is something I need to put out.

So they go into the studio Rich Bitch Studios in Birmingham, England.

There it is.

And I think they had like maybe four days to put it together, like 3 days to just get in there, do it.

And you know, this is a new band.

This is essentially like, you know, your first, one of your first experiences in the studio.

I think with their inexperience and just the engineer also really probably not knowing how to capture the style of music or maybe even just do it in general.

Like completely fumble through the production of this LP.

Like to the point where they spent so much time mixing it afterwards that like the drums were like almost like they were couldn't even use them.

I think they did have to re record or re engineer a lot of it at some point.

One of the things I that I even remember being when they set it off to the pressing plant, they had to like there's a quote from Bill that says I don't know anyone who's blown any speakers while playing the first Carcass LP.

Perhaps it might have caused some damage if the pressing hadn't been so quiet, but the guy at the pressing plant told Digg that it had to be that worry or else the bass frequencies would take over completely.

He said he'd never heard such a low frequency on an album.

So.

That is, that is phenomenal when you've got the guy at the pressing plant going, like, what have you done?

Like what, what, what have you done?

What have you put to tape here?

And now you look at that 35 years later and everyone's like, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, sure, sure, Brina.

Yeah.

Come on.

Yeah, don't forget to credit the engineer by his nickname.

Would get up wrongly.

Ivory, wasn't that it?

Is that a?

Is that a Jeff Walker state?

But it's like, yeah, dude, you, yeah, hey, oh, we'll credit you.

Oh, yeah, sure, you'll make it on the record here.

Such a bummer.

But yeah, I, you know, it's, it's a pretty, it's got to be demoralizing when you are.

It's supposed to be an exciting thing, right?

You go into the studio and you're putting these songs to to tape and it just comes out sounding like absolute horseshit.

And so it was a, you know, after the release of the record, they just pretty for several years, it can pretty much disown it completely.

That's how you know Carcass ain't a black metal band.

They didn't own it because it they're just like, no, this actually sounds like shit and we're admitting it as opposed to like a couple of those smoke controls and Norway are like, no, we did it this way for a reason, right?

Carcass is like fuck off.

Please know what you're doing.

Please don't listen to this.

Which surprisingly, is not what happened, because despite the way it fucking sounded, despite the negative reviews of God, people liked it.

People had never heard anything like it before.

So there it, it kind of generated the small, you know, underground metal following.

And then out of fucking nowhere, John Peel, of course, from BBC Radio 1.

It it made his favorite album of 1988 and even invited the band on to record a a session with him.

It like much like they had with Napalm Death.

So here's another guy of course known for putting on a lot of like abstract, weird, heavy music of that time.

Fucking love this record.

So I guess it's not all bad.

I, I would have, I would pay money to go back in time just to sit around at some British family's home and they're listening to like Radio One.

It's like a Monday evening and like, you know, Kennon to Neil's playing.

And then all of a sudden it's like, oh, and here's you suffer followed by regurgitation of giblets, like just Wham.

And those songs are going to go by in less than 60 seconds.

So first record comes out in 88, they do appeal session in 89 and then like basically that summer they begin recording their follow up album Symphonies of Sickness.

Now around this time, Bill's tenure, couple year tenure with Napalm Death had come to an end.

Like Dylan mentioned, he's on the B side of Scum.

He's also on the follow up record from Enslavement to Obliteration in 88.

He's featured on a split with the Japanese hardcore band SOB.

He's on live EP and also most importantly, I guess for the context of our conversation, mentally murdered, an EP that came out in 89.

And so during the recording of this Napalm Death EP, they recorded at Slaughterhouse Studios in East Yorkshire, England with producer Colin Richardson, who again, another kind of name amongst this era.

And the scene basically the English Scott Burns, like he recorded everybody from Carcass to Napalm Death.

The bolt thrower we've mentioned in previous episodes, but essentially when Bill was at the studio and working with Colin, he, he knew that this was like the best producer I'd ever worked with.

So when they were gearing up to do Symphonies of Sickness, they brought him in and recorded the record with them.

And wouldn't you know it, you get someone who knows what they're doing, it's going to sound a lot better.

And and thus you kind of have this record that they feel is really the first time that someone had properly captured their sound, their essence.

They don't call it a perfect record, but it's, you know, I, I would say maybe it is maybe like the the proper first full length for the.

Band it's it it doesn't sound like a demo, right?

It sounds like a first.

It sounds like an official full length and it actually it's where the band started to sound like them.

It's where Carcass started to solidify what they were going to sound like.

And if you're not familiar with that record, there's some really wild interesting shit going on in that, like doomy riffs and all sorts of stuff that you wouldn't imagine keyboards and sense, like horror sounding sense that are awesome.

It's a wild fucking record.

A lot of that could be due to just Colin's inclusion on the record.

They mentioned like he had a lot of input and how the band would sound and you know, I I'd imagine he probably helped add a lot of that atmosphere for the record, there's like some samples that are a lot of fun on that, but also they just had more time to fucking work on it.

So you go on in, you get it done.

And this was a big deal.

And you know, it's so funny.

There's a really great Carcass archive that I found that had like all of these old like out of prints interviews and reviews and come to find that like even with this record, and this is kind of just the trajectory of the band throughout the, you know, up until like they broke up in the late in the mid 90s, people even complained about how this record sounds like it wasn't it.

Like it wasn't grotesque enough, it wasn't shitty enough.

Like people complain, but it's like, no, this is like a cleaned up version of that thing.

Like it's still rooted in all of this kind of filthy grind, but people still griped about it, which is insane to me.

There's something about metal fans.

They'll they'll complain.

God, I rob it.

At this point, it just feels like in 2025, it feels like everybody had complained about something.

I mean, that's why we're here, right?

That's all we.

Do that's it.

That's what we're here for.

And it's so wild that like that first records 39 to 40 minutes long.

That's not including the other 20 some odd songs that are the demo.

It is absolutely baffling to me that that album is 40 minutes long and this one's shorter.

I believe I maybe by like a minute songs are a little bit longer, right?

They start getting into that territory.

It goes from a 35 second song.

To just sorry.

So yeah, Reek is 39, Symphonies is 43.

Oh, OK, that was all.

Oh, man, they sold out.

They pushed it fucking 43 minutes, man.

They pushed it.

Can't do it.

Can't do it.

You better not.

And it it is like there's more clarity on this record.

Songs are a little bit more fleshed out, right?

They actually start to feel like songs.

And as you mentioned before, this band really does have a great grasp of songwriting about what they want to hear and the fact that they've released an album in less than a year and they're already hearing cries of sell out.

Whereas like I, I, I think Napalm even dealt with that too when it went from scum to to enslavement.

And it's like, fucking what is going on?

This record also is important to note because it kind of marks a shift in the band's trajectory a little bit.

So, you know, released November 4th, 1989.

They embarked on a lot of like, I think they mentioned that things started to kind of ramp up from here and that like they were on a bunch of pretty significant tours.

One of note that maybe just like a few weeks after this was released, the 1989 UK Grind Crusher tour, which featured kind of like a slew of irate bands including a Bump Death, Morbid Angel, Boat Thrower.

They went on several tours throughout 1990 through various regions of Europe with bands like In Tomb, Deadhead, God, Flesh, Napalm, Carnage, Atrocity, and more.

They even toured the United States supporting Death for a few months on the Nauseating North America tour.

They also kind of signed their first proper deal with Earache cause initially it was almost kind of like a handshake and like, Hey, you'll just put it out and it'll be fine.

Leading up to the third record is where they actually did sign something in ink and, and that was that.

But they also really couldn't, they also really couldn't like do this style anymore.

Like there's really nowhere else to go.

I mean, this this sort of music I feel like does have like kind of a a ceiling like what more how how gross or how like brutal can this really be?

We've we have all the lyrical themes.

We've kind of explored all this territory already.

We either keep doing it and that is fine, but it's boring.

Or we can start to kind of include some other elements and influences.

And that's essentially kind of what they did for the next record.

Necroticism.

Or how I should say necroticism.

Discanting the insulubrious.

Yeah, What?

Is it duh, I mispronounced it I.

Think I think Austin was right.

They started to get more melodic and start including more just like technicality in their plane.

They were getting better.

It's just, you know, where you need to go somewhere you can't just keep putting and that and that, you know, obviously pissed off a lot of people, but I don't think this band ever really like was writing for anyone in particular other than themselves.

So it's kind of where we're at here with this 1991 album.

It's also the first album to feature guitarist Michael Amit, who rounds this band out to a four piece, which they hadn't been since their demo.

Now Michael was an English born Swedish guitar player.

He was previously a member of a kind of a crust punk band called Disacord before starting a pretty cult HM2 fueled Swedish death metal band Carnage.

Maybe you've heard of their demos.

Dark Recollections is like a classic of that kind of era and genre.

Yes, it is that that might be my favorite.

Like early Swedish death metal record is that one.

It's it's Mike on guitar and then it's Matt of Dismember later on on vocals on it and it's it's fucking great.

It's nasty.

So I also heard a story just to kind of maybe tie it in how far this goes back.

Like, allegedly Michael was asked to join Napalm Death at a certain point while Bill was still in the band.

And so he was brought in, they kind of rehearsed, and he really only wanted to join Napalm Death under the guys that Bill would also be.

He wanted to play a long Bill.

Like he admired Bill's playing, wanted to be in a band with him.

Bill kind of took him aside and basically told him like, hey, I'm actually going to be leaving.

I'm going to be kind of shifting my focus into Carcass.

So you're kind of like going to be my replacement because of that.

He declined that offer.

But, you know, now knowing that he wanted to play with Bill, Bill was like, well, why don't you join us in Carcass?

Like, you could be our second guitar.

But he had heard Reek, and he fucking hated it.

I thought it'd sucked.

So he was like, actually, no, I'm good on that.

Here's that.

It's like, sure, I'm going.

Home.

Yeah, I'll.

I'll write you.

I don't know.

I'll write you.

I'm cool with sending tapes back and forth bud, but.

Gave him a pat on the head, Yeah.

I don't think we're doing this.

I loved finding out that when sickness or symphonies came out, he went fuck, what have I done?

It's just like, Oh no, I've shit the bed and he's like, hey, can I come do this again?

Sure.

Come on.

It's a good thing they weren't Petty, weren't like some fucking American bands, weren't like Dave Mustaine or James Hetfield or.

Nobody's as petty as Dave Mustaine.

Nobody.

No fucking body.

Hey, you know what I don't care for?

For consistency on just being a hater for all this time up until the end, literally.

Till the end.

Till the end and you know, I'm sure it won't be the last we hear from him, but so yeah, Michael joins on the touring for symphonies and they start to essentially write necroticism during this period of time.

Kind of started in early 90, then they kind of continued to write into 91 before reconnecting with Colin in Amazon Studios in Simons Wood, Lancashire, UK.

Another studio released a like at Halloween 91 showcasing kind of this new songwriting style.

As I mentioned before, I think it was their best selling at this point probably.

I would assume so.

People again weren't weren't big fans out of it and they were so fucking dramatic about this album.

There was 1 review in particular I found in that archive that said what milady has befallen the gods of gore.

Some of the rumors, as much as I hate to say it, are true.

Stop.

It's malady.

That's malady, not malady.

I was picturing this guy with a fucking.

Fedora.

Fedora, What milady?

Milady, what malady has befallen the gods of gore?

Some of the rumors, as much as I hate to say it, are true.

Carcass, the once sickest band around, has forgotten to how to grind.

It's like.

My God, fuck it.

Did you listen to the record?

Did you listen to it?

Like it's all that?

Yeah.

You've got a track like Incarnated Solvent Abuse that has a video and you've got, I think Tools of the Trade is on that record.

And like you have all these really catchy tracks, but like, it's still the elements of where they were is still there.

It's just more refined and gotten a little bit more like weird even.

Oh, there are some amazing fucking riffs on that record.

Like honestly, it's I really like it.

I think it's it kind of can go toe to toe depending on my mood with artwork.

I mean, really like Corporal jigsaw, Jigsaw pedigree butchery.

Like, I mean, there are there are some fucking amazing songs on that record and I would definitely, you know, would not ever leave that out of the conversation.

I I also like the fact, too, that they still loosely, throughout the band's whole career, they've kept up with the kind of medical thing all throughout with their album covers.

Obviously this one's not as extreme.

It's just before photos of those guys, like, interspersed on this.

It's a medical tray, right?

Like getting ready for like, a surgery prep or something.

Yeah.

And then what's the what's the comp or like the best of with the oh, choice cuts.

Yeah, that's just, Yep, the rules.

Choice Cuts is there?

Yeah.

It's just Bill, Jeff and Ken on the cover of that one.

Like they've stuck with it.

It's that tongue's so implanted in their cheek, they've had to have it physically removed by a doctor.

Like it's.

It's so much in there and it's all in there.

Just wedge it in there and the fact that I'm thinking if there's a modern band or a contemporary band that's dealt with cries of sell out on every single record without it sounding any too vastly different, right, with it just progressing and I can't think of anything off the top of my head.

No, and it's not like it would be one thing if it was like such a drastic sure shift, but it it isn't people.

I think what's so crazy about hard work is that people do kind of when the people gripe about it, I feel like they almost talk about it.

Like it is such a a drastic shift from, you know, the first records, like, and I suppose if you were to put those on back-to-back, maybe you have that argument.

But that's not what happened.

It was like a gradual progression to this record we're talking about today.

Like, it's not this crazy asset.

I think the the melodicism has existed basically from the beginning in my in my beliefs.

But yeah, so this is just.

It now it's at the forefront now it's on hard work and they begin writing that record essentially during the time of Necroticism, the touring for that they liked where they were at with that record.

I think they were trying to basically, I think Bill or Jeff kind of describes them as kind of trying to prove to themselves that they were able to write in such a kind of like technical, like they're really trying to challenge themselves on that now with this record, they're kind of trying to make it more straightforward.

I think there was even a line where they said a lot of that technical shit really wasn't catching on with a lot of people live, but there were some of the more straightforward tracks from Necroticism that they could tell like, OK, maybe we need to like scale this back a little bit.

They purposely wanted to write shorter songs, more straightforward.

Trim the fat.

Yep, that's a that's almost verbatim what a certain San Francisco band did from 89 to 91 or 88 to 91.

What?

What's the Kirk Hammett quote?

We would be playing Injustice for All on tour, and I would watch people falling asleep during Injustice for All and I knew we had to do something different.

So much different form of music or sub genre here.

But like, even those guys were just like, yeah, some of the more technically challenging stuff from Necroticism isn't necessarily like clicking with everybody.

We like it, but we also like these more kind of fundamental tracks that we have, the straightforward ones like, can we do that with still while still having these different elements of like technical proficiency that we have?

Because it's definitely on the record we're talking about.

Oh, there's still some weird shit out here.

My God.

On the back half of the record especially.

Oh, there's some, there's some wild stuff.

There's Yeah, you're right.

And you mentioned, you know, Metallica and they mentioned them and Nirvana and a couple if they believe in that Decibel magazine kind of Hall of Fame where we weren't necessarily taking influence from them sonically.

But the aspect of like these are just great.

Fucking like rock punk records.

Like there's this is just the song.

Like it doesn't need to be overly complex.

It can, it can be like, you know, I mean that this, the album itself opens up with essentially like a Hard Rock song.

So like you're kind of you're getting that.

Mid tempo.

Oh yeah, lots of lots of some kind of stompy mid tempo risks on this record, you know, but they also mentioned like, you know, they were listening to bands like Helmet and Vicious Rumors and Pantera gets mentioned a little bit too in some of the interviews.

And, you know, they're, I think at a certain point, you know, like you're expanding as a songwriter, you're listening to different things.

They kind of mentioned like we weren't like, you know, trying to find every like third fucking copy of a demo from some death metal band in Ski and the Navy anymore.

We were listening to a lot of the stuff that was going on, some of the more like maybe contemporary bands of the era and different styles of music.

So it was just kind of a natural thing, whether whether they knew it or not, that it was going to go into their playing style.

And so that's kind of what ends up on here.

They were writing a lot on tour.

They kind of mentioned that they had this like drum machine, this massive drum machine that Ken had purchased some at some point on the 92 tour with Napalm Death.

So it'd be like Bill and Ken kind of rehearsing together.

And then Jeff would essentially take some of these cassettes and he had like a four track and he would kind of like edit it together.

And they mentioned doing this kind of on the bus and maybe in Jeff's house like all the prior releases they would do in like Bill's in the spare bedroom of Bill's parents house.

Now they're kind of bringing the shit on tour.

They're doing it at Jeff's house.

You know, obviously Michael Amit being a huge like he, his influence is on the previous record, but he I believe had like at least 6 songs that he had Co written with Bill on this record.

So he's definitely not out of the equation either.

You know, I mentioned Ken being a really important factor of the earlier work.

I think he kind of takes a back seat as far as like the songwriting output, whereas it's more Bill, Mike and Jeff that are doing most of the work of like shaping how this record sounds.

I believe you're right.

And I think Bill's quoted as saying like any of the early Carcass songs or Carcass of the really gross and sick sounding stuff was Ken.

He would just sit with an acoustic guitar and record into this tape or a tape player or 4 tracker, whatever he had, not having really any knowledge of how to play it.

Just like he could come up with a group of notes or a cluster of notes that just sounded cool.

And they used a lot of that stuff on those first 3 records.

And this is the first record where everybody kind of focuses on one singular thing ultimately, like Mike and Bill are progressing this guitar players, they're getting better.

This is like the record that they're really focused on, this record being hard work, that they're really focused on being as good as they could and as streamlined as they can with their guitar playing.

Ken's drumming is above and beyond what it was even just a couple years before.

Jeff has this great ability to place phrases and lyrics and spots that I wouldn't normally think to put it.

And it's everyone's just really honed in on what they're doing.

It sounds like a really toured band, right?

Like just really tight toward band.

And you know, Mike's presence is felt all over this record, which is which is weird to to realize how the recording went, but we'll get to that.

Yeah.

And they did a lot of prep for this record.

I mean, they came in around like February 93 at Par Studios in Liverpool and they recorded in like the smallest room and basically put together like a really good demo of all of the songs that they could give Colin ahead of like the actual final sessions that would occur much later.

But yeah, so there's there's these demos and I think it's on the deluxe version of the album where you can hear them if, you know, we have you kind of mentioned guys honing in on on particular things.

You know, Bill's vocals are absent from this as opposed to like the previous releases.

He kind of provides that like low guttural vocal.

He, as you mentioned, again, wanted to focus more on the guitar playing.

They it wasn't for lack of trying.

They actually did like, please sing on this record.

And it got to the point where I feel like he had made his peace with it.

And he was so annoyed that he just like walked out for an hour.

He's like, I'm done talking about him.

I'm not doing it, but you have Jeff kind of putting in the work on his own vocals and on the demos in particular, they're like seem kind of to put in a Jack McBride kind of quote here.

They're fried.

These these vocals are fried as hell.

They got a very raspy quality to it.

And that's because I think the night before Brutal Truth and Cathedral were playing and he went to the show and and smoked a little hash with everybody and then had to record these vocals.

But it completely fucked up his performance a little bit there.

But he like he says he likes the demos almost a little bit more.

At least at a certain point.

He's like the demo versions of the songs were a lot rawr than the album ones.

I have to say I kind of prefer them so.

Isn't.

Isn't hash, doesn't it like not get you fucked up?

Isn't.

You're talking that's the case.

Yeah, I what I know of hash is when hearing in movies from the 60s and 70s referring to it as hashish and hearing Ricky from the Trailer Park Boys attempt to sell it repeatedly.

It may be different now, but I think, I think you people used to have to use hash in like brownies or like food stuff to use it to get high because I thought for some reason you couldn't smoke hash and get high.

I don't know, It's been fucking almost 20 years since I smoked weed so.

So let's put let's put this out to the the few people that listen to the show.

How does that work?

What happened?

Jeff, let us know.

We're not cops.

Just tell us.

No, I'm not, No.

Ignore.

Ignore this.

Ignore this.

Damn.

By the spring of 93, they completed work on these demos and then they went on a essentially a European run with Cannibal Corpse Death.

And you'd think you're going on tour, you're going to play songs.

Some of the songs that people know they did not do that.

They played like the all of the songs from this record on tour.

So songs that no one's ever heard of before.

And probably you know that I'm sure there's some Dick head in the crowd going like, you know, play anything off of fucking symphonies or reek or whatever.

You're getting like a new album that is far more melodic than the previous shit you've heard.

And you know, I, I'm sure you can make the argument too.

You play you, you test them out live, you play them.

But it is kind of an interesting choice to just like, you know what, fuck them.

We're just playing the whole new wreck.

This record's not even out yet.

We're this is the songs we're playing and.

Like what a tour to do that on too, right?

You know, you've got Death who are arguably the creators of this sub genre you're part of.

You've got Cannibal Corpse who are essentially kind of the most popular up and comers at that point with this is pre Ace Ventura, but this is post tumor and mutilated.

Death is either in the process of writing or had just finished recording human correct.

This is 93.

Yeah.

So when did that come out?

Was was human 93 an individual thought patterns was 95 Was it or am I off by?

Just fucking go on.

Just.

Fucking make your point.

You've got you know, you've got death.

Who is this?

Oh, oh, swindle can't can't let me talk for a minute.

You've got death.

Who is this very Ford thinking band, right that is not wanting to get stuck in any sort of constant loop of were this Gore influence death metal band.

We're just doing scream bloody gore, spiritual healing over and over again.

And then you've got Carcass.

That's like new record.

That's it.

You got 30 minutes, you're getting 30 minutes of new songs.

So this this record probably should have been recorded again in the spring when they before they like done this tour, I'm sure.

But they were kind of like holding out.

Like I mentioned, they were signed at Earache and essentially like Digby and the Earach crew solidified a distribution deal with one Columbia Records major label.

And you know, other bands around this time this year actually had surprisingly had records out on a major label.

Cathedral being the first of the Earache bands.

They put out the Eternal Mirror on Columbia.

Morbid Angel, as we've discussed in the previous episode, Covenant came out on Giant, which was a subsidiary of Warner.

And so then you have this record, which you know, for all intents and purposes is an earache record, but in the United States was distributed by Columbia Records, which again, is so insane to think that a record with blast beats and kind of like fucking, you know, couple just a few ends up being on Columbia, you know, Columbia Records.

It is wild to think back then.

Now it's it's really common, right?

You know, there are bands that are on major labels that have all these extreme qualities to them.

But you know, in 9293 when all of these bands are still very firmly rooted in the underground, I guess the largest label that had really dealt with a lot of these bands would have been a Roadrunner.

At this point in time, just seeing Columbia or like Sony or Warner Brothers with their tagline on all of these things is is pretty insane.

The marketing for this records pretty wild to like Columbia started sending out all of these press packages with like fake blood packs and all sorts of stuff to all these different record stores and posters and subway stations and all sorts of stuff.

Makes me think back to when Wolverine Blues came out.

Columbia made a deal with Marvel Comics to use Wolverine in an advert like a poster.

Albums got nothing to do with Wolverine at all, and they're just like Wolverine Blues.

Here it is.

But it, it is interesting to, to look back and think that a lot of people had an issue with this, this record, because they thought it was a major label record.

It it really isn't.

It was they made it for Earache.

It just happened to get distribution.

So quarter of the demos in February, they went on tour.

They were holding out for that distribution deal.

They ended up entering Par par St.

studios again in May 1993 and then would kind of they recorded the the album for essentially like a month, kind of ending in like mid June again with Colin Richardson.

However, they he almost didn't do the record.

You know, this is a guy who understands the band sound kind of helped cultivate the band sound to to what it was at that point.

But I think they were kind of, they were a little, they were a little cheeky.

Is that the British word for it?

They were being a little.

They were being a little.

What did Jeff, how did Jeff refer to it?

We were just, we were such cunts back then.

Yeah, it seemed like they didn't want to fall maybe prey to we're we're using the in vogue producer now, right?

Jeff in the Decibel Hall of Fame has referred to the Americans head Scott Burns.

Colin was really in demand at that time.

You know, I think the machine head record was recorded around the same time frame.

Colin's name had been associated with all these other records, and they thought about essentially not using them just for that reason alone, rather than, you know, any other reason to use not use them.

Their one one line was like they thought like, oh, he he's getting diluted by recording all these kind of lesser than bands, like they're they're not as good as us.

Why are you wasting your time?

Like, you know, fucking up your talents.

You could be just putting our record out.

So they almost went with I believe, the in house engineer and produced it their self themselves.

But Colin kind of like took him off the side and and kind of talk their way back into to recording the album.

So this album being on Earache and having distribution with Columbia, you have like a much bigger budget.

I think they listed it for £25,000 which a around $40,000 at the time, which was a lot of money for this type of record.

They ended up initially booking studio time in like the best like the biggest room at Parr St.

but like immediately were kind of met with like not being able to recreate the tones that they had when they were doing the demo.

They just couldn't find the right sound.

Like they spent like almost a week trying to figure out like what the fuck to do because they just weren't getting anything they liked.

And then they thought, well, let's go back up to the small room upstairs.

And within minutes they were able to kind of recapture all the tones that they got.

And so they just recorded this big budget record in a fucking in the broom closet upstairs, essentially.

I, I think Bill had even stated that they'd spent, you know, a good portion of week getting this guitar or working on getting a guitar sound.

Yeah, like $1000 a day.

And they're kind of just going, oh, shit, what have we done?

What are we doing?

And they go upstairs and get into the broom closet and it's, it's boom, hey, guitar sounds here.

And it is, it's one of the very first recordings of probably one of the most universally known high gain amps at that time in an extreme metal record, that being the 5150 and that kind of became Collins thing for many years after that.

You know, it was that an old Marshall head and something called a Governor pedal that went in front of it.

It's essentially a Tube Screamer.

Yeah, a couple different things here.

They there's a quote from Bill Steer in a Guitar World from 94 that says, yeah, if I remember correctly, almost all the guitar tracks were done at least 2 amps going at once.

One of them being a large amp like the Anniversary on Channel 2, a Marshall SLX one 100 Watt or the 5150.

And then also more often than not my 10 Watt Marshall valve state micro stack for extra texture.

And then they had the Governor pedal for some OverDrive.

I think a lot of these guys used.

I know Bill is kind of more of like a Gibson player as well.

I think there was like a Jackson soloist use as well maybe.

I think there's a some Ibanez there as well.

Yeah, but he had he had a weird kind of catalog of guitars up to this point to PV Nitro's Squire when he was playing a Napalm Death.

I think the Gibson started to show around this time period too, which again, kind of adds to the weird classic vibe of this record, right?

But I mean, the guitar tone is now that's like the industry standard that that is the industry standard for like heavy music is that guitar sound.

And it was just, hey, fuck it, it works, let's do it.

It sounds good.

But I think there's also still a level of like, fuck it.

We'll like we're we kind of also don't know what the fuck we're doing because there's one quote from the Decibel Hall of Fame where it's like the kick drum ended up being 2 kick drums.

Yes taped together to make an ultra long kick drum.

The same with the Cavs.

We taped 2 Marshall Cavs, take the back off of 1 and gaffer tape them together to make a massively.

Deep calf.

Don't know, I, I need to see proof of how that works just because it doesn't seem like it just seems like those four dudes were like, what can we do to be really funny?

And we'll only get the joke because I've never heard of any other recording that they've done something like that with.

No, yeah.

It's just, I don't know, make it, make it bigger.

Let's it's like, I don't know, let's let's tape all of our skateboards together and we'll go like, what?

What is this?

I mean they're, I've definitely seen Instagram videos where like a person has a mic and like a really long tube going to the bass drum to like.

Right.

Change the sound of the recording.

You know what's funny now I think about it, I'm almost fairly certain when we were doing the Dope Throne episode we had that we had like found in the video, it looked like they had kind of done the same thing with the the bass hits where it was just like a hodgepodge of gear, just like cobbled together.

Maybe a more extreme version of what we're talking about here.

But yeah, I guess not necessarily unheard of.

It's just kind of a ridiculous thing.

That's the thing they shove away so no one does it again.

Swindle.

What are your thoughts on the artwork?

I I didn't really pay much attention to the background to the to the cigarette case part of of the art, but the foreground of it's pretty like simplistic.

It's not.

It's not.

Crazy like a fucking Cradle Of Filth album cover or anything like that.

Yeah, I think, I think that's true.

Like it's very, it's minimal, it's simplistic, like you said, which kind of matches, you know, the the songwriting just kind of like, here's what it is.

It's not like grotesque imagery.

It's a fucking sculpture or picture of a sculpture like which is a crazy and yeah, HR Geiger.

It's striking, you know, it's, you don't really know what it is, at least to my eyes.

When I first saw it, I went, I have no idea what that's going to sound like.

It doesn't look the record doesn't sound like the artwork to me.

And that's how I still measure a lot of records I listen to is I want it to sound like what I'm seeing.

And it just looks very almost sterile in a very strange way.

And you mentioned it, it's Geiger.

And even for Geiger, like it's very tame for much of his stuff.

I mean insert frankenchrist.

All I mean, think of the Danzig record.

He did think of the Celtic Frost record.

He did like, there's a lot going on there, but they specifically kind of did not want to be making like kind of like the choices that other bands were making.

They like the the painting side of Geiger's work, It seemed like had already become like a thing that, you know, here's another trend.

This is a sculpture that it existed.

It's called life support.

I think he made it around like the 60s or 70s.

And so I believe Dylan had quoted Jeff saying that he was involved with a lady who maybe knew Geiger's wife or girlfriend or manager at the time.

And so they were able to get connected and, you know, they asked, they were going to ask for the original piece.

But it turned out he was like just, it just so happened to be that he was working on like a another like version of it or like reworking the the, the piece itself.

So yeah, they got to to use some Geiger artwork for the cover, the title.

I don't, you know, like with these sorts of things.

We've kind of mentioned we're not like big on the OR at least I'm not a big lyric lyrics person that kind of goes over my head.

But it didn't really seem like there was much thought necessarily into the the the title.

They waited basically until all of the album tracks were named and then went like, well, hard work sounds pretty good.

Let's go with that.

We're not going to do one of these like long, drawn out, kind of weird titles, hard work, simple, to the point.

Jeff, I believe, was not a fan, but Bill and Ken were kind of like the ones that push for it.

So thus you have the album being hard work again, another change, kind of like toning down some of the previous themes of the record.

I think there are a lot of like there are Carcass lyrics on this album, but they're not as like in your face.

Like it's not it's there's a little bit more subtlety to it.

It's you got to like kind of dignified it.

It's not like here.

Here it is on a platter like this is.

Yeah, thinking man's carcass.

You got to dig a little bit, you know, seeing some of the quotes from the guys on what some of the songs are about or learning what it all is and the directions that Jeff takes with some of his lyrics on this record coming from kind of the anarcho punk background and using some subtle politics here and there on the record is a big change, right?

You know, he's he enunciates very well, but he still sings in a way that is very graveled to you still really have to read along with them to fully understand what's being said.

But yeah, you know, it's it again separates them from what they were doing before.

Each record progresses that much more forward.

Well, we've talked about the history, we've gone through the making of this record.

Let's get into the tracks.

Swindle.

Having never heard this record, having just kind of spent a good deal of time with it, what do you, what do you think?

I didn't really catch that much death metal really.

And listening to it, to me it seems more in line with like, like I said at the beginning, like a Pantera or even like not as fast as like not as fast as early Metallica, but maybe a lot of the a lot of similar like way of riding riffs.

I guess some like the first the opening of the album to me sounds like it could easily be like one of the moodier like Metallica tracks from Master of Puppets or something like that.

It kind of to me it just sounds like a heavy metal album and like I would have been in, I would have like, not that I'm not trying to say I didn't like it, but like if this would have easily fit in with the music I was listening to when I started listening to Metallica or Countdown to Extinction or like when I was first getting into just regular Degular heavy metal, like this would easily fit in to all that stuff I was listening to.

Really accessible, like really catchy.

Just yeah, that, yeah, accessible, right.

Like it just fit.

It's fundamentally all there.

I, I don't, I do not think it's a death metal record.

There are elements there for sure, like, but very minimal.

Like very like there's only a handful of blast beats on the record.

There's only one grind rift on the entire record 1.

And even in the parts where there's like crazy tremolo picking, it's very minimal.

It's utilized in such a way that it it's almost like it was done for the for the like the impact of it as opposed to, oh, let's just do it.

I mean, I, I agree.

You know, it's considered kind of one of the first melodic death metal records And like to to an aspect, I agree or to an to a degree I do agree, But I I still think it is AI think it's just a heavy metal record.

I think that's where it comes down to.

Yeah.

And I don't think they were necessarily trying to do anything or make people like, yeah, this is a death metal record.

This is that.

I think they were just trying to make the best record that they could make.

And I mean it, yeah, I think it does like if I'm really going to place it in a sub genre or something like that, I do think it has like some more of the thrash kind of elements to it.

There's obviously like some more traditional stuff, like I definitely hear Judas Priest.

I definitely hear Iron Maiden, you know, you know, I, I some of the solo work with especially the trading back and forth that that's almost like, you know, Marty Friedman, Dave Stain to me, like that's just where I'm pulling from.

As a person who did grow up on a lot of that traditional work, that's where my brain goes.

So I get like Swindle says like this is like if you were looking for something to like maybe get into a heavier style of music, this would definitely be the one to be like, Oh, well, shit, Cannibal Corpse, Obituary, Like let's let's listen to some of these like Scandinavian, like HM2 bands.

Like I think you could easily make the trajectory, especially if people were, you know, if it was a major label and they were listening to a lot of those bands, this could easily have guided me into that sort of trajectory.

But yeah, I think I mean, right out of the gate, Barry Dreams, which I guess is like it's a little, there's some John Wayne Gacy themes.

And then also it's kind of like a weird answer to All You Need is Love by The Beatles.

Apparently it's a It's a Hard Rock track like that is just as Hard Rock as it could get.

It's it's got that great mid tempo kind of swing to it when a lot of the tracks on this record do they have this great weighty kind of swing to them.

And I think a lot of that is owed to the the tuning that the guys playing, which is AB tuning and they're using lighter strings and so on and so forth.

And the guitar sound on this record, without getting too far away is massive.

It is one of the largest guitar sounds I've ever heard.

But you look at a track like Barry Dreams has these mid tempo, kind of like 4 on the floor kind of pre Black album kind of things going on.

You look at a track like Embodiment, which is just heavy, like beyond weighty, starting out with 1/2 time feeling that and going to more of a full speed and a shit on here that sounds like it wouldn't be out of place on a Crowbar record.

I think that would actually be the one.

Yeah, like you.

Mentioned we we were talking off camera.

I mean if if there's a Pantera track it's probably in body.

Yeah, I mean, you've got you've got actual like pop structured songs with like No Love Lost, which has this great groovy kind of slidy riff at the beginning of it.

And some of these songs are only two riffs, some of them are one, and they're just variations of that.

And they're really focused in on the songwriting aspect on this record.

Like I thought listening to this in hindsight, I would find something I would want to omit like, Oh yeah, maybe there's AB side track.

I would no, everything on here to me fits so perfectly.

But that's we know that the songwriting on here is top notch, but I had I tried to find my favorite riff on the record and they're so fucking many.

It's just really hard, at least at least for me.

And there's moments on here that are as intense as they could possibly be.

Like, you look at this mortal soil or Sorry, did I get that wrong?

I'm going back to Mastodon.

All right?

You look at, like this mortal coil and you look at RB, at mock flesh, and you look at those tracks and there's some wild shit going on.

Yeah, those are.

I mentioned the earlier in the episode, you know, I think the and maybe it's just the way the sequencing and you're on a major label, like kind of hit him hard in the first half with like maybe the more straightforward, kind of like Hard Rock kind of just.

Yeah, out the game.

But man, the back half is so crazy.

I mean, fuck yeah, R beat Mach Leish or whatever the fuck.

However you fucking pronounce it, there's some shit on there that is just wild.

And some of it is like, like you might play like a weird, like brief measure of something and then it fucks off forever.

Sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt you.

The riff that plays like 3 times, they like pause the song and then it's just the two guitars playing and then they like go.

Into.

One of the very few grind parts.

That's my favorite.

That's my favorite guitar part of the entire.

Album that it's it's that stacked 5th kind of thing they're doing that they go they ascend, then they descend it back down that kicks into that grind part.

It's like it's 4 seconds long, maybe not even that into this grind part.

And it's like it doesn't feel like it's just shoved in there either.

It just feels like it flows so well.

And that's a another thing to mention is this record flows so fucking well.

You know, I look at a track like doctrinal expletives and it's just like locked in stop start riffs in there.

Like there's a point in that track where like that's the Pantera one to me.

It makes me think of Pantera and Helmet on those verses.

Is that where it goes like the like the halftime thing that they did?

Like there's a point in there where like Jeff brings his vocals in for the first time and there's like a snarl as it kicks in and it's like, God, it's like, this is fucking cool.

Like this is that's what I wanted Mustaine to sound like was like Jeff in those parts, like to a point, because like Dave has that kind of like snarl to him and those early records.

And that's that's where I hear, you know, the band has kind of argued that there aren't a ton of Megadeth influences on here and they may not have really listened to it, but there are some things on here that definitely sound like Rust in Peace or Countdown era Megadeth for sure.

Like I think there's a riff in doctrinal, sorry, doctrinal expletives that's like this weird kind of like it's not a pull off, but it's a single note riff that's played really fast and I'm like, Oh yeah, that's on Rust in Peace.

That's on Countdown to Extinction.

I think I would learn more into like the Megadeth territory just because of the fact that that it is like more of a technically proficient thing.

That's not to say that one's better than the other or whatever, but like, I just think, you know, that 2 guitar kind of like Marty Friedman thing, like all of the guitars that that that band has had.

I think you definitely find like that like Marty Freeman, Nick Menza era of like Megadeth on here, like whether it was purposeful or not.

And with that, I mean you have like just the the lead arrangements between Mike and Bill, like the the melodicism on here.

I mean, from the opening, really.

I mean, Barry Dreams is like a straightforward kind of rock track, but like that, like, I'm the yeah.

That creepy thing.

Like out of the gate, it's great.

Every song really has some sort of like lead line, this harmonized lead line that kind of sticks with you through each thing.

I mean, really any song you could pick out, I mean, fuck, like, I mean, we, I guess we could get into the fucking the title track Heart, heart work.

I mean, it's just.

That opening riff.

It's been stuck in my brain like all all week, like just listening to it over and over again.

I'm 36 and I downloaded this record when I was 14.

Well, I'm 35, sorry.

close to fuck enough, right?

Once you hit 35, it's all downhill.

That riff has been stuck in my head for 20 plus years.

Like it's just, there's, there's something about how that intros with the with the drums kicking in, with the the blasting that's going on and how it's locked in to the verses.

I like that's a perfect song for me because of how it's written.

It's a one of the longer songs on the record.

There's some nuance, there's some variants in it, the harmonized breaks that are in that song before it kicks into the verse and it goes to that weird kind of like that whole part is fucking perfect.

We've talked a little bit about Bill and Mike and their guitar playing on here.

The back and forth is crazy.

And I want to say that Mike did something on this record that I love as he brought the wah pedal to the forefront.

Because on Buried Dreams you hear that it's the God who are the brothers from the Scorpions, the Michael Shaker, that half cocked wah thing that Michael is known for in his other projects he's done is there and it's like fucking obnoxious and I love it.

It's just he's man.

You can, you can tell who's who when like they're trading back and forth with like the solos and stuff like that.

And there's like, I mean, there's some more kind of like rock'n'roll type solos, but then there's like some of the like, more like shredder kind of like classical bits.

But everything has weight.

Everything's like very dramatic.

Everything you can, you can feel it in your gut essentially when I when I hear it.

And yeah, so I mean, like almost every song on here has like some sort of solo or even a progression that is just like at the level of like a solo.

And it's all tuneful.

It's all like very catchy.

It it it it's.

Great.

There's their transitions on here are so well done and well thought out there.

Most of them are really quick.

You know, I go back to a track like Embodiment and there's a slight transition that's just a chug.

It's like, and it's on to the next part and they're all so well placed and well thought out.

And the sequencing on this record is done really well because it just flows.

Because when I was prepping for the episode, it's like, oh, I'm I'm going to find a flaw.

I'm going to find something that makes me go I don't want this.

And the things on here are like, OK, you know, I wish this song was 4 seconds shorter or something like that.

Or maybe this song should have had a fade out.

But it it all just it's such a well compacted and precise record.

It's 42 minutes long.

You get all of these fun songs.

You know, not only are they great songs, they're all of them have probably been played in the set at some point.

I mean, case in point, they were playing the whole record before it came out.

You know, look at like a track like that's less known on here, like Blind Bleeding the Blind, which is just Slayer and Testament worship the entire time.

It's just fast, it's thrashy.

You know, I haven't brought him up yet, but I look at Ken's playing on this record and it's so precise and he does a lot of fun shit that's not a typical heavy metal stuff.

It's he's not completely locked in with his kicks on every single riff, right?

Like he's kind of playing off with his kicks or I hate to use this as an analogy, but more of like a large thing with his kicks a little bit where they're slightly off here and there.

But unlike Lars, Kim's being intentional with that, with the off time stuff and what he knows when to bring the double kicks in.

I can't pinpoint which track it is, but there's one track in particular and it might be doctrinal expletives again, where it there's big open breaks there and the drums are like doing these variations of double kicks kind of throughout that whole part and it's just fucking cool.

I'm like, oh, he dialed it back a bit and it's just really kicking into these parts.

I, I, I did notice like there were like some fills and stuff where I'm like this could go off the rails at any point 'cause it was like, like, so like some of the rolls, some of the stuff, but they're like really cool.

Like it goes from like very steady, kind of like grooves.

And then sometimes it's just like a burst of fury.

And yeah, like the fills, like could go off the rails at any, any fucking moment.

But yeah, can for, you know, not being as, I don't want to say present, but not being like most of the input as far as like the the structure and the riffs coming from the other three guys.

And he's still like kind of holds it down with the the drumming.

I thought the the first part of this mortal coil was kind of interesting because the guitar riff is very not grindy, but the drums are blasting through like the whole fucking riff.

And I was like this.

This seems like such a weird like combination, like a weird time to blast during this riff.

And maybe that's like, I think the most like, I don't know, death metal and grindy thing about it really might be the vocals.

But even then, like, yeah, they I I wouldn't say like he he's I don't think he's the best metal vocalist ever.

If it's I think it fits Carcass.

I think it's great.

I I and it's it's cool to hear because like you can definitely hear like he is.

He's trying to make it like there is like melody.

He's not just like screaming.

There's.

Like being tuned full?

Yeah, it's great.

I I would have liked to have heard Bill's vocals on this record.

I think that would have been like super cool for like there to be that kind of barren snake thing that has influenced so many other bands to do it.

But I would have loved to hear how that dynamic would have worked.

It's it's a great record.

I'm glad that we got what we got, but it would have been interesting to hear that for sure.

I I think I guess my only qualm is like, I do wish the bass was a little bit louder in the mix.

That would that would be it.

Like there are points you can hear it, but like you are really having to pay attention to hear.

And it's usually when there's a guitar break or something or like, you know, Jeff does a big slide like in hard work.

And I think it might even be on the back end of blind bleeding the blind.

There's this weird kind of slide going on that you hear for a second and it would have been cool to hear him a little bit more.

But I mean, it's, it's a bulletproof record to me.

There's pinch harmonics.

I don't want to miss that like in, in, in areas that make total sense and, you know, emphasize shit.

You know, I, I really haven't spent a lot of time with like the B sides for this record either.

I know there's two and it's like, where would you fit any of those in, you know this?

Is this is?

What is it like?

Well, rock'n'roll.

And there's one more and again, that just shows their tongue in cheek kind of thing to it, right?

But these are these are fun, fun fucking songs.

And some of them are a little bit more like, you know, in depth, like Embodiment Jeff has gone on to say is, you know, it's about Christianity, but it's not just like Christianity's rubbish.

It's a little bit more in depth.

This mortal Coil is a breakdown of the union in Yugoslavia.

And I think you've already mentioned it, but Buried Dreams is kind of a tongue in cheek nod to All You Need is Love.

Yep, yeah, I think Arby Mock Flesh is like about, I mean, really that, you know, these guys grew up in a pretty, you know, industrial part of town.

So I think that kind of like reflects in that song.

So yeah, as far as like the lyrical themes go, it's there's a little bit more thought and you know it.

It's not just about kind of fucked up gore shit.

Like I'm sure if you look for it, it's there.

But at the same time, like, it's more about like, I don't know, the human condition, life, I don't know.

There's just more, there's there's a little bit themes outside of their typical repertoire that they're putting into this record.

And Jeff was a big fan or is a big fan of like bands like Crass and Discharge and all those political leaning like anarcho punk bands.

And you know, I believe even the to show that the album after the swan song, the artwork for that was done by one of the guys that did all the Crass artwork.

Oh cool, I didn't know that.

So like there's he's still got a lot of political leanings.

And I think Mike was kind of from the same area that Jeff came from, meaning like musically, you know, with Mike's input on this album, you know, Mike was kind of stuck in, he was stuck in Israel I believe seeing seeing a girl he was seeing or something along those lines.

And his passport was tied up.

So he actually didn't get the record anything on the record other than solos.

And he helped write 6 of the fucking songs.

And for the period of time that Mike was in the band, which was from 90 to like 93, it come the band would have continued to progress, don't get me wrong, but it changed the total kind of sound of where that band went.

Like I think Mike just had this melodic sensibility that helped further the already melodic sensibilities that this band had.

And you know, him coming in doing his solos, like place the shit out of the solos.

Like you can tell he's fucking hitting those things out of the park.

And you know, it was, I hate to say it, but I think with this records release and all the weirdness with like Mike being stuck in another country.

And I think this is where you started to see kind of the downward trajectory of where the band was going, which is a bummer to say, but that's that's it.

I think if the band had maybe stuck with Mike or Mike felt interested, the band could have God done who knows what.

Or I would even say like not even ended, like not even having anything to do with Colombia either.

Like I think that certainly that.

Didn't help at all.

Caused a lot of tension dealing with kind of just the the bureaucracy of everything.

Yeah, No, no way.

No way.

So Dylan is absolutely right.

Mike was only present for maybe like the like 1/2 of the recording.

Put down the solos.

And it seemed like he even kind of says it too, like maybe his focus was elsewhere.

He had started a band maybe around the same time of joining Carcass or in in the time that he was in Carcass called Spiritual Beggars.

It's more of like a rock band if anything.

So I think at that point he definitely put a lot of care and effort into what he was writing for the band.

But I think he was more he he wanted to like do his own stuff and have an input and maybe more what he was actually writing and producing.

So he ultimately leaves the band after the recording of the artwork, which is kind of wild to say 'cause like, he didn't the only touring or the only time those songs that he he he wrote were played were prior to the album was being recorded.

So he never really actually got to tour when it come out.

So Mike ended up doing Spiritual Beggars for a little bit and then later forming Arch Enemy.

Which huge band?

Massive band.

I want to say there was an article I read as well where Jeff kind of goes over some of the bands that were inspired or influenced by Carcass that he mentions.

Allegedly there might be some riffs or material that's featured on the first Arch Enemy record that may have been Co written by Bill Steer, but he's not credited on it.

So I just thought that was kind of interesting there, but.

And it, it, it could be, I listened to the first Arch enemy record a few days ago and like, it's definitely in this vein for sure.

It is definitely in the vein of of hard work era.

And that's a band that is you, you either really like them or you don't.

I, I don't think they, they have different eras of that band as well.

But his, his handprints are all over that band.

That's his band.

Like it sounds like this, this type of riffage from Mike yet again.

And you know, we'll come back to Arch Enemy once we get kind of to the later part of Carcass's career a little bit.

So Mike being replaced by Mike Hickey, who is a American, he's from Boston.

He was a roadie for Carcass, so they kind of knew him that way.

He had previously played in Venom.

He's featured on Calm Before the Storm, the record from 87.

He also played in Ronos's solo project after he had left the band, so he's on some of that material.

He also briefly played in Cathedral for a while and currently or at some point he was a in the more modern era.

He was like a guitar tech for Joe Bonamassa.

So just a whole 180 there I guess.

But they brought him in to do the touring for this record and very short lived as well.

I think they had hoped that it would work out with Mike Hickey, but it never really seemed like they clicked musically.

And then even one point, there was like a time in the tour where he was like, I, I really couldn't, can't imagine you playing on the next record, is what Jeff said to him.

And he felt the same way too.

So they moved on and they recruited former Devoid guitarist and fellow Liverpool native Carlo Rogatis.

And yeah, they had been, I think they would have like known each other since at the time of REEK.

So like local guy knew that he played well.

I think they kind of mentioned him being like the younger guy.

He was like 20.

The guys were, the other guys were like 25.

So I, I thought that was good for like, Oh yeah, we got the young guy with us now.

He's really excited.

We're all these old.

Yeah, yeah.

Bitter.

They're British.

They've been bitter since day one.

So Carlo ended up staying with the band through the next record, which so essentially after hard work comes out, you know, it's it sells well, but kind of no one it's kind of like mixed reviews again.

You have like fans who are are not stoked on it.

Sure.

Jeff kind of mentions like no one gave a fuck at the time.

Like, I don't know, it's kind of crazy that it is like this cult record now.

But it did end up, you know, solidifying a deal with Columbia.

So the artwork essentially distributed by Columbia in America for their 5th record.

They signed directly with Columbia to release the record.

And you know, they had, I think they had were hopeful that they would put all this, you know, effort and and marketing behind the next record.

But I don't think Columbia really knew how to market a band like that.

Or more more probable is that they didn't give a shit.

Which you know.

The phrase tax write off was used a lot by Jeff of like they thought it was a tax write off.

I think there's a, there's a really good story that I found in some research that said they were walking through like Columbia records home and they're like, oh, this band was signed to Columbia.

This band was signed to Columbia.

And they found out from like friends of theirs, like, yeah, you could record a record and the label will just shelve it and never release it if they don't like it.

And I think they started to get really nervous about that.

Oh, yeah, there's like interviews where I don't think they had quite broken up yet, where they're like, oh, we're 100% going to get dropped by this label.

Oh, it's like it's going to happen.

Which is a crazy thing to like just.

Yeah, like they that essentially did happen.

They got dropped and they went back to Earache.

Well, they broke up, I should say.

They, they attempted to do this record and have it released for Columbia.

They recorded it in like like early 95, I think maybe around like April.

They had intended for it to get released in October, but it kept getting pushed back.

Like the guy who signed them ended up.

So there's like a lot of like changing of hands.

The guy who signed them like no longer worked for the label.

They kept wanting to like have input.

Unlike the way it sounded like you got to sing a certain way.

These songs have to sound a certain way essentially just caused a lot of tension.

And even Bill essentially said like I, you know, I think they I think they were just kind of tired of probably each other and also dealing with that to the point where like, hey, if this isn't going to come out by October, I'm probably just going to pack it up and, and call it a day.

And that's essentially what happened.

Bill said I'm done.

And they, I think they were kind of tired of trying to find replacements and guitar players that they were just like, well, this, I mean, Bill started this band.

There's no other Bill.

Like, we're just not going to do it.

And that's.

Yeah.

So they got out of their deal with Columbia and it the the record was released in like June of 96 by their former label Eurig, but they had already broken up by that point.

It's it's so wild to think too like this.

It took what, three years for this band to completely?

It took three years for this band to get where they got with hard work ultimately, and then it took three years for it just to devolve into all of this.

The guys were tired, the guys were worn out.

The label made it extremely difficult with all of that, which is a common thread with a lot of bands from this era, if not even in today's contemporary bands as well.

But you look at Swan Song and the band sounds tired.

I think if you had, if they had the energy, if they had the intent, if Mike was still there too, everybody was still feeling good about it and they were able to put as much work and time into that record that maybe they did hard work.

Swan Song could have been a better record and a different record.

I don't hate Swan Song.

It's not amazing.

There's a few really fun songs on their songs that they play live.

Like they play Keep on Rotting in the Free World all the time, which is a fun fucking song.

Black Stars got a great riff on it, but like a lot of that stuff's just very it seemed half hearted, it seemed tired, it seemed like the guys were worn out.

And it's a bummer because Hard work was just this crowning achievement of a record from this band.

And as you said, the band broke up in 95, and the album doesn't get released almost a year and a half later.

Yeah, like, we'll say, yeah, half a year.

And, you know, the band's done.

There's no touring.

There's nothing.

The band is done.

Complete gone bills in Firebird at that point.

Is that right?

Kind of.

So essentially 3 of the members of Carcass, you have Jeff Walker, Ken Owen and Carlo form Black Star and they continue to play a it is more of a like a rockin like rock like a rock project.

I'll say Bill moves to Australia and he spends a few years there and he's like leaning into like slide guitar and harmonica, which I guess does like you mentioned, he he kind of comes back to the UK and forms this band Firebird with members of.

So yeah, that kind of ties back into that.

Eventually, the Ban would reunite in O7 for a handful of reunion tours, which would eventually culminate in just another record, Surgical Steel in 2013.

Now, I know Ken unfortunately suffered a pretty severe brain hemorrhage like at the end of the 90s.

So he was, he kind of, he just wasn't able to play at the level he he had formerly done with the band.

I believe they're still on very, very good terms.

I think he's in like I, I want to say even with the surgical steel stuff, he's like in some of the videos.

He's in the videos.

He does vocals on the record.

Yeah, he does vocals on the record.

Torn Arteries is named after a fake band Ken had when he was a kid.

So, like, they're friends.

That's The thing is the three guys that formed Carcass are friends.

Like, they're all still communicating and keeping close ties about that reunion, though, before we get too far away from that, the reunion was done.

They would take Ken to every show.

All of these festival dates and these tours.

They take them with them and Mike, Michael Amit came back.

Arch Enemy's drummer Daniel Erlandenson I believe came in and did drums for that.

Who is the his brother is in at the gates, which is Adrian Erlandenson who is also in Cradle Of Filth and many other bands.

So they came back.

It was this kind of, I think everybody expected the first Carcass record to be done with that line up and Mike was like Nope, I just wanted to be part of the reunion.

I've got Arch Enemy, so on and so forth.

So you had some downtime before Surgical Steel came out.

And man, those those two reunion records are fantastic records.

They're great, I think.

They're it's like swan song never happened and they just picked right up.

Yeah, I think those are classic records in their own right.

Like I think I if correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't Surgical steel, like didn't they give that a Hall of Fame?

They gave it a Hall of Fame already and it was It was Decibels top album of the 20 teens.

So that essentially wraps up our very long and thorough explanation of carcass.

The entire existence of.

Carcass We did.

We did it, we did it.

Swindle.

How do you feel?

I wish that bands didn't feel like signing to a major label was part of what like the trajectory was.

Like Why did Well But Hard Work wasn't a death metal record, but ostensibly why did a death metal band feel like they needed to sign with Columbia Records to further?

Like that's just what bands thought they had to do because there are so many bands that have been completely fucked over by major labels.

And the only reason why they would have signed to a major label is just because they were taught to think that that was the thing to do.

Like we're not making it big until we sign to Sony or BMG and all these label, none of the labels once they realize they're not going to fucking sell anything, they're like, Oh well, fucking keep it in the keep it in the fucking and.

They mentioned like the best that they would like they, you know, they'd go there or like talk to people who didn't even know, you know, who they were or like some of the promotional shit that they did would be like, it's the the Metallica pre party.

So like some of their tour dates would almost line up the day before or like, you know, the day after a fucking Metallica date.

So they're trying to line it up with that like, hey, if you're going to the Metallica show this weekend, maybe you check out Carcass.

And I think they'd hope that, yeah, they would like secure some some bigger shows, maybe play with like Megadeth.

They did end up playing with like body count, I think was like a wild one in the UK.

They did a Life of Agony tour.

But yeah, it's just like, you know, yeah, that's a good point.

Cause for a band to start out really with no sort of, you know, like we're just, yeah, we're just kind of fucking around really.

And it almost it really accidentally.

If anything, it became bigger than itself, like so quickly.

And I think it's much different for bands now, right?

Like they know you, you don't have to have a major label.

Hell, you don't even have to have a fucking label anymore.

Like there are so many great artists that do get whatever their version of successor big is without a major label, you know?

And the best thing that I've noticed in today's kind of age is make the make the record yourself and just license it and just have it distributed right.

And it is such a bummer to know that there were so many band.

I think we've all talked about this collective.

The music industry still kind of functions like it did the 60s and the 70s, which is insane.

And these guys just got wrapped up in the wheel of, well, we have to do it this way or else we're not going to have this distribution.

And maybe it was just signing to a different independent label.

Maybe it was like, hey, maybe metal blade can give us something, right?

Maybe Centrimedia or nuclear blast or or one of those other labels, right?

They seem to have found a good home with nuclear blast in the past.

They.

Sure have.

You know, 10 years or so.

Yeah.

And.

Anytime their records come out, there's always great promotion behind it.

They're in every place you could go, every record store.

Yeah, I agree.

It's such a bummer to, especially when we look at albums that are 30 years old and you realize, God, they were, they got caught up in it too.

It's like that.

They just thought they had to do that thing.

But is it Judas Priest, the album that we talked about forever ago when they signed to that label, they like, tried to control how many people were in the band Because that's just like, this is how many people should be in a band.

And these are the instruments that should be on your record.

Like yes, let us make the shit we want to make.

We can make you guys the monkeys, but with leather.

Yeah.

The leather, the.

Leather monkeys.

But you know, with all with all that said, and like, yes, maybe some things that ultimately dissolve the band, like it just took some time and you know, the record being out there to like kind of do its thing and like spread its influence, which is like we see it to this day.

And like Dylan mentioned, like people specifically will try to emulate, emulate like either hard work era or maybe they don't like that they want to go with the kind of gross grotesque, like symphonies of sickness kind of version of this band.

But it it is very clear now that like when the band goes out, they release a record, There is a respect, there is an appreciation for like what they do, who those people are that playing like their classic band.

It's there's just the outputs.

They're like this record will stand the test of time.

And it's just like such a perfect kind of record.

Like I don't know whether it's like grind core death metal.

Like it's a it's a great fucking record.

I I think I'm going to angle towards what Swindle said, like it's a heavy metal record, right?

It's as it's classic.

It's as close to perfect for me as it as it could ever get.

It's one of my favorite albums of all time.

It's the gateway record for this band.

For me it is such a I can remember nuance and shit on it that I never thought I'd remember and it just pops into my head via the videos for No Love Lost and heart Work and and all of that.

It just a fun perfect presentation of what a really well thought out record could sound like and what a really well written record could sound like from 4 guys that just ultimately liked playing music and progressing without it kind of going into like prog rock territory right?

Just a great record that influenced so many others.

I I don't think you would have certain eras of metal core without this record.

You wouldn't have certain eras of death metal without this record.

Hell, you wouldn't have some of the better grind bands I think without them not wanting to sound like this record and wanting to sound like the early era.

Right?

Like fuck Carcass sold out with hard work.

We got to make something that sounds like symphonies and make it better, right?

We got to, we got to remind people that that still exists and it's just, it's a timeless record.

Enough said.

We've reached that point in the episode where we like to share some things we've been listening to, some recommendations of things we think you should check out.

My first one I got some vampires are back.

Just a bunch of Dracula's making some spooky music.

Worm announced their upcoming record Necro Palace.

It's going to be out on February 13th, 2026.

Through Century Media Records, their debut for the label.

They released the title track as a single.

There's a video, it's like 10 minutes at least.

It sounds great.

I fucking love it.

It opens up with like the fucking organs.

The cover looks like something out of fucking Castlevania.

There's like a dissection like tribute on the back.

It looks like it's cool.

I love this band.

I, I mean, I love Foreverglade.

I fucking love Star Path and Blue.

Nothing.

I think this I, I, I just love this band.

I think they are doing some like really interesting guitar forward music.

If you like all of the the the shredding and like the back and forth guitar solos that Carcass does on this fucking record, you'll definitely like Worm because they do it like on everything they put out.

You know, it's wild because what was it literally a couple weeks back?

I just, I mentioned in our group chat like what the fuck happened to the band?

Like they just, we haven't heard anything from in a while and like Century Media just drops a bomb on us.

Like no prep, no anticipation, just drops it.

Here you go, fuckers.

I didn't have to fucking hear a goddamn thing.

I was like pre-order that shit.

It's like like a double vinyl that's got like a booklet or some shit like that.

Did you get the red one?

Yeah, I got the red thing too.

It's going to, it's bound to be cool.

There's some guest appearances.

We have some live members and some recording members of Holder that some of which have like performed with Worm in the past.

You're also going to have fucking Marty Friedman on this record to tie it back into Megadeth.

He he, I think he plays a solo on the last track mastered by Arthur Risk Rizik, however you pronounce it.

He did like all of the production work on this record.

And then some great artwork by a guy who's like, done some of the coolest kind of very fantastical pieces you've seen from like Blind Guardian, Hammerfall, Immolation in Flames, like very, very stoked for this record.

Yep, it's going to be fun I.

Can't tell I couldn't tell I.

Couldn't tell at all.

Wow, Swindle.

I hate music.

On the other side of things, I've been like listening to just maybe stuff that doesn't necessarily require like a ton of attention or like just a feel good record.

Tony Molina on this day.

I fucking love Tony Molina.

He writes a lot of really great kind of like simple, also like very melodic pop music.

Kind of sounds like Laurel Canyon a little bit like some very like interesting classical like scales that are kind of thrown in there.

He released on this day this year, 21 songs, most of them again, like under like 2 minutes maybe, but they're fucking great.

Just nice, like really great palate cleanser.

You'll fucking enjoy the shit out of me.

My first recommendation is Spencer Radcliffe and everything.

He released an album called Ohio Vision on 11/14 via Orindo Records.

I think it's only out on cassette so far.

I don't know if there's any plans to put it out on vinyl or whatever.

It's kind of maybe maybe alt country but it's more I think this album leans more into like Neil Young rock or something then like his previous which was more way more country leaning.

I think it's I really liked his previous record Hot Springs like the A side had like registered bangers on it, but I think the full this new full record is better than Hot Springs.

What did you think?

Awesome.

I love that.

And it's so funny to like another artist that we were like, where is this guy?

Where the fuck have you been?

And then just literally dropped full record.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

Not even a single nothing.

Well, was it that?

Wasn't that how the Algrenon record dropped too?

Wasn't it just like?

That one snow caps, right?

Well, there was kind of a little bit of a tease, right?

Or something like.

There were no singles.

No, it was just out, like bam.

So I kind of like it.

I like that.

Like, I don't miss that.

Yeah.

So what else you've been listening to?

Anything.

My second recommendation is another record that's coming out on February 13th of next year.

The title track for the new Converge record, the song Love Is Not Enough, dropped this week.

It's fast, it's fucking streamlined.

This song doesn't really have too much crazy guitar work.

It's pretty much like one or two riffs all the way through, but it is fast as hell.

Intense.

One thing I want to bring up is obviously like I knew the title, did not know it was coming out the day before Valentine's Day with that fucking title, which is, which is so perfect, man.

That just a band what, almost 40 years into their career, 35 years in their career, just like dropping shit like this.

It's the first stand alone full length from the band since 2017.

And then the first thing since the the collaboration they didn't.

Was that 2020 or 2021?

Yeah, like it's been a minute.

It's been a fucking minute for these guys.

I don't I, I haven't seen the track listing.

I don't know if it's out yet, but I do know for a fact that in one of like the converged social media posts, Ben Kohler said they recorded like 20 or 24 tracks for the record or something.

So I don't know if it's a double fuck, there's a join or what there's.

11.

There's 11.

That was the first thing I fucking checked.

I was like Oh well, let it be good, but not a double record.

Maybe get something that comes out later?

Right.

Yeah.

God yeah, there's a lot of good shit coming out in like 2026 already.

Like it's fucking wild.

I have, I have 3.

So the first one I wanted to start out with is a bit of a lighter record.

I've really been enjoying the new Mountain Goats record through this fire across from Peter Bakken, which is I had no knowledge of it.

I know of the Mountain Goats, I know of John Darnell, obviously a rider, big fan of extreme music.

So it always drew me towards them and learning that like Eric or Tan did some production work for him years ago.

But this records sad, fun, interesting, progressive.

It's a base from what I've grasped, it is essentially a musical about a bunch of guys on a boat.

And it's like musically it starts out and it's just almost like progressive, like late 80s era kind of rush thing.

What am I fucking listening to?

And my girlfriend and I were in the car one day and we listened to it.

She's like, this is really good.

Like, yeah, it's this is fucking great.

So that records on my list and the newest release from Lamp of Murmur, the dreaming Prince in ecstasy.

Man, I've been looking forward to that thing.

This year's had some pretty great black metal records that have dropped agriculture black braid Lamp of Murmur one of nine like some really good black metal records and this is no different.

This I was a big fan of their last release, Saturnian Bloodstorm and yeah, thank you, Baba Booey.

And it's just it's great.

It's a journey, you know, it's got equal parts like Immortal and there's some stuff from like I hear Satiricon in there and I also hear like Nick Cave elements on it from like some weird vocal stuff that's going on.

It's just a really fun fucking record.

And lastly, if you've never listened to the two most recent Carcass record to do it, listen to Surgical Steel, listen to Torn Arteries.

I went back and listened to those just over the last couple of days and just forgot how fucking fun and like great and honed in those records are.

And the fact that you've got Jeff, Bill and like to a lesser degree, Ken all still putting stuff together into their 60s at this point, it's like, just bring it on.

Let these old let these old codgers do it and have fun doing it.

Check it all out.

It's listed below.

You can check out some of the things we've been listening to in our official playlist, riffs on repeat hits from the Crypt.

You can also follow us at Riff Worship Pod on Instagram and Twitter.

You can e-mail us at riffworshippod@gmail.com.

We got some guests coming up.

We're going to be talking about some more records.

Maybe we'll do a Christmas record.

I don't know, Carcass Christmas.

Leave that all in.

Leave it.

Let's see.

Oh my baby.

Yeah, we're we're gearing up for kind of our last bit of episodes for the remainder of the year.

I'm sure we'll do a best of.

But until then, for myself, for Dylan, for Swindle.

You've been listening to Riff Worship.

We'll be back next week with something else.

See ya.