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Rating:
Reek Of Putrefaction...
Few words for this album destined to change the course of extreme music history. We are in 1988 in England. Already between the early and mid-80s, various bands had already tried to unite the most extreme face of Hardcore Punk bands like Discharge and Dead Kennedys with the darkest and most extreme Metal around at the same time. Among the first godfathers of the so-called Grindcore, we can mention Repulsion with the seminal "Horrified," but the real band destined to give birth to this genre are the English Napalm Death, who in 1987 with "Scum" laid all the foundations for Grindcore. The year after, in the same England, Carcass debut, a band destined to make the history of Grindcore and later become a Death Metal Band with "Necrocitism" and "Heartwork" and then end their career with the insignificant "Swansong" (in my opinion, eh).
"Reek Of Putrefaction" is Carcass's debut, an album oppressive, extreme, and full of insane and macabre atmospheres. Unlike their contemporaries, Napalm Death, Carcass's music is based on slower rhythms (well... if they can be called slow... let's be clear) much more Metal. The influence of the early thrash/death bands is notable. Moreover, unlike the early grind bands, Carcass leave aside protest themes to focus on more surgical and disgusting ones. The lyrics are clear, in fact. They are accurate descriptions of autopsies written in not-too-easy English and above all full of surgical terms. The irony behind each word adds a touch of fun to the lyrics, which nevertheless, in my personal opinion, still remain protest-based, a protest different from other bands of the period, against a healthcare system in crisis. The technique of the three musicians at the time was not the best, but unlike many modern bands, they knew how to handle an instrument. The vocals are one of the strongest points of the album. A growling that I have always considered excellent alternates with the unique screaming of singer/bassist Jeff Walker and the putrid growls typical of Grind/Gore, heavily used by modern bands but still used only in some parts, avoiding making the album monotonous and giving another touch of sarcasm to the album.
The guitar riffing remains very simple, as per the best grind tradition. The drumming alternates not too fast blast beats with punkish parts. The bass blends with the other instruments creating a real sense of chaos, also given by the LP's production—a truly awful production like all the albums of the period but which fortunately increases that sense of decomposition and decay already given by the trio's music. The album opens with "Genital Grinder," an instrumental ride, continues with "Regurgitations Of Giblets" and "Maggot Colony," where we find very strong themes supported by extreme music. The next "Pyosisfield" is notable, with more refined passages than the other songs and is probably among the best tracks of the group. Other songs to pass down to posterity are "Excreted Alive," "Feat On Dismembered Carnage," "Psychopathologist," and the last "Malignant Defecation," pieces where the band successfully combines the various elements of their music, producing truly wonderful songs, among the best of the genre in my opinion.
In Conclusion, "Reek Of Putrefaction" is an album that has made the history of Grindcore. It gave birth to a genre branch called GrindGore, unfortunately too overused today but still undeniably fascinating. Subjectively, I believe this album can receive the highest ratings... History... "Vomiting On Your Bloody GutsIn Your TombSeptic Vomit Of Chyme..... Putrid Offal... Regurgitating the Obstructed Giblets In Your Esophagus Eaten By Worms Trapped In Your Sarcophagus" (Carcass - "Regurgitation Of Giblets")
Tracklist Lyrics and Videos
02 Regurgitation of Giblets (01:24)
Coughing up a mixture
Of mucus, phlegm and bile
The sordid sight of burning flesh
...Your stomach is reviled
Spew up your sanguined guts
In your wooden box
Septic vomit of chyme...
...Putrid offal...
Regurgitated giblets
Blocked in your oesophagus
Eaten by the maggots
Trapped in your sarcophagus
03 Maggot Colony (01:37)
Oozing chyme reeks as your duodenum is hacked
Secreting gastric juices, enzymes melt your faecal tract
Torn major arteries, your corpse with blood is drenched
Your mouth is ripped inside-out as your oesophagus is wrenched
Maggots and grubs bore into the mouldy remains
Masticating lymph, caked blood and cankered decay
Maturating brains play host to the grisly fete
Stuffed anal passage, served on a plate
Purulent torso is a perfect maggots meal
Spilt cerebrospinal fluid is sucked up with zeal
Botulism vitiates the emulsifying bile
Liquidized gall bladder, viscid pus smells vile
04 Pyosisified (Rotten to the Gore) (02:55)
The lingering scirrhus begins to harden
As the insides fall prey to putrefaction
Rotting tissue turns to mush and pulp
As your mind is torn by encephalitis
Your cavities rot with ulcers
Your infected inflammations torn
Your gizzards eaten by incursive decay
You're infernally rotten to the gore...
Juices digested from each pus-swollen pore
Insatiable hunger as I feast on the gore
Nothing gives me greater pleasure
Than a bowl full of chyme
Maggot infested kidneys
Are what I choose every time
The smell of plaguing infection
Is nauseatingly emetic
Prolonged spumescence of stale pus
Stinks like hot, putrid vomit
Your body is indurate
The insides are black as tar
Your innards gnawed by septic hate
Now a mass of empyaema
Your blood is caked
Dried and inconsistent
Your bloody rotten gore
Is now vitrescent
05 Carbonized Eye Sockets (01:11)
The pungent aroma of hot, bubbling, molten gristle
Blends with the stench of hot, singeing flesh soldered to liquid muscle.
As the cornea is pierced and fried sizzling retina
Burning and spitting on the now blackened, charred fovea
Holes of crumbling carbon are all that are left
Charred eye-sockets of hot scorched flesh
Fusing symblepharon, your flesh turns into coke
Extravasative gunge now black, pungent smoke.
Charred eye-sockets - horrifically pernicious
Your sight irreparable by your optician
Once flowing blood is now dried, resembling black pudding
Now all that bleeds is a slow trickle of hot, sticky muscle.
The sclera is a lump of carbon burning on smouldering membrane
Your eyeballs are blistering, your optic nerves now aflame.
06 Frenzied Detruncation (00:59)
Limb from limb...
Curled glands...
Hacked giblets...
Stumps for hands...
Limb from bloody limb
Ruptured spleen...
Rancid loin...
Shattered ribs...
Splattered groin...
Retching pus...
Dissect and slash...
Limb from limb...
Stenching gash...
07 Vomited Anal Tract (01:45)
Oral eruption
Rectal extroversion...
Your vagus implodes, as nausea strikes
Savaging your body in terminal retch
Violent spasms and decaying enzymes
Engulf your throat as you belch
Intestinal disturbance, your ileum turns inside-out
Your duodenum is thrust up towards your mouth
Your pancreas excretes stale septic pus
Your whole digestive system is now a sticky mush
Rectal vomit in your thorax
Retch your anal tract
Liquidized oesophagus mixes with bloodied excretion
As you pathetically gasp for breath
The stench of hot faeces scorch your nose
As you violently vomit to death
Your intestines are rising, up towards your throat
Stale bile escaping through your bloodied nose
Your colon digested into acidic slush
Your tongue gargling on your dislocated anus
08 Festerday (00:22)
Tear out your intestines
Cut your liver into two
Throttle your heart
Till it's swollen and blue
Puncture your flesh
Skewer your eyes
Leave you to fester
Then eat you alive
09 Fermenting Innards (02:35)
Your pulverized torso languishes in its pool of pus
Minced, cancerous viscera - gore seeps from the guts
My fetid fetish is to excavate the moulding rot
I drool my gastric juices as I chomp on you blood-clots
Fermenting innards, bubbling with rot
Alcoholic pus, dissolves the wooden box
I gouge into the chest's cavity to rip out the intestines
Slivering soft entrails to release the foaming secretions
I suck up the concoction and eat the decay
With cankered disgorgement I excrete my gurgling prey
Bile, chyme and blood in the offal effervesce
I eviscerate the bowels and drink the clotted cess
10 Excreted Alive (01:21)
Eaten alive
Munched into pulp
Premature necropsy
Comes closer with each gulp
Brain not fully dead
Decrepit splattered libs
Mass ensanguined spasms
Excretion now begins...
...Semi-conscious human faeces
...Semi-digested squirming pieces
...Semi-animate in excrement
...Semi-terminal constipation
11 Suppuration (02:19)
The rotting corpse lies on a mortuary slab
Pus starts to burst from each visceral scab
Body temperature drops, bone seizure takes place
As the discharge oozes from the boils on the face
Suppurated - Pyosisified
Pustulated - Soggy insides
The cataleptic remains incite the suppuration
Giving way to the stench of anal emanation
This repulsive concoction drips onto the floor
Cleansing the viscous enzymes of the body's inner core
12 Foeticide (02:46)
Plugged into the socket
Leads attached to twitching skin
Ignite the squirming foetus
To dissolve it from within
The uterus aspirated...foeticide
Suction catheter eradicating...your insides
Foeticides done daily
Frying them inside the womb
Electrocuting embryos
In their sterile tomb
Your cervix an abscess...foeticide
Pumped out by your gynaecologist...your insides
Spasmodic convulsions of pleasure are gained
Pumping the boiling gunge as you languish in pain
Scouring out the womb from the effervescing rot
Scrubbing-brush comes in handy to clean out all the clots
Electrodes buzz with power
Visceral muscle is charred black
Melting bone, frying aqueous humour
A dignified death is what you lack
14 Feast on Dismembered Carnage (01:27)
Bodies dismembered, corpses desecrated
Carcasses liquidized and minced with hatred
Brains are splattered, strewn limbs and heads
Blood has been spurted as the arteries were shredded
Eyes have been impaled, flayed skin in strips
Intestines and guts from the body have been ripped
Stench of sweet blood, bones have been crunched
Festering gore is eaten for lunch
Parasitic carnivorous carrion, your gastrointestinal tract,
your prey's cremator
Bloody neo-cannibalistic, bloodfeed masticator
Rigor sanguined fleshfeast, gourging on festered entrails and warm meat
Devouring cold offal, necro-sentient mortis feed
Mutilated organs, the meat-cleaver is raised
Falls to mash the head and rip up the face
Throats slit with vengeance, flesh stripped to the bone
Your death is terrible, painful and slow
Drooling palate
Terrible odorous mess
The repulsive stench
Of roasting flesh
Sterile carnage, dried sanguined personae desecration
Scooping out the entrails, violent entrail emancipation
The taste of violent gorge hot on your breath
Digesting the succulent corpse in your succous death
15 Splattered Cavities (01:54)
Erupted thoracic savies - serum, pus and offal
Perspiring ulcerous chancre - splattered on your wall
Necro-cellular lesions - the stench of staining scabs
Scraped up by medics, and wrapped in plastic bags
Exploding pus and bile, abdominal saliva sprays
Coughing out your intestines, and rubbing them in your face
Carbuncles oozing sanguous, mortified entrails and rot
Pieced together for autopsy, in your wooden box
Frantic pelvic gut-wrench
Splattered guts and gore
Seeping disembowelment
Mopped up off the floor
Pelvic insides now rest in your perineum
Splattered gore seeping from your orifices like hot sebum
Pancreatic juices
Internal digestive mess
Acidic dripping spittle
And squelching moist flesh
Pulverized thoracic cavity
Your rib-cage is snapped
Rupturing internal organs
Crushed in your diaphragm
Your lungs are collapsed
As your abdominal cavity is splattered
Terminal back-ache paralysing
As your spine is shattered
16 Psychopathologist (01:18)
Effervescing entrails corroding after years
The stench of the canker brings me no tears
Festering tumours of cancerous decay
Gnawed and chewed by maggots with malicious hate
I like to slide my hand inside your stomach
And rip out the putrid remains,
Drink the pus and munch on the internal organs
Until all the casket is drained.
It's fun being a pathologist - slicing up corpses
Especially when they have just been exhumed,
I like doing autopsies on festering carcasses -
I get high sniffing on all the fumes
[Solo: Inquisitive Brutality]
The sound of rancid juices sloshing around your coffin
The mould and the gore remind me of that you're rotting
Congealed blood clotted around both sets of veins
The beautiful colour of your decomposing brain
17 Burnt to a Crisp (02:43)
Torched to a pimple Peeling skin and tissue Inflammable rectal gases Scalding your sinews Charbroiled to blackened char Smoked, sauted and black Blistering flaking tissue Insalvageable by skin graft Fused into a mess Dribbling cartilage and fumes Your body shrivelling Your fingers beginning to prune Burnt to a cinder Your body charred Incinerated carbon Molten as tar Smouldering ashes Scorched entrails Carbonated dust Cremated remains Burnt to a crisp Your fat's on fire Devouring you whole Like a cadaver-stoked pyre Charred to the bone Your flesh is burnt Tissues molten Bodily gases inert Human inferno Blazing eruption Evaporating marrow Spontaneous combustion Burnt to a crisp Your hair is singed Devouring your scalp Receding your fringe Dripping flesh and fat Spreads like an irritating rash Your fingers melting As you vainly scratch
18 Pungent Excruciation (02:31)
Sanguinary disinterment Necrobiotic rash Gnawing, throbbing anguish The gullet is now mashed Pungent excruciation Flesh mummified by lice Amputated contusion Help yourself to a slice... Contamination... Strangulation... Mutilation... Gangrenous abscesses Paralysis sets in More carnage and bloodshed And the reek of molten skin Frenzied detruncation Dispeptic, charred and black Terminal putrescence Psychotics carve and hack Osteoporous enzymes release deadly secretions As the clotted parasites devour the excretion Emanation, suppuration - blood starts to gush My nocturnal dysentry is unleashed on this mush
20 Oxidised Razor Masticator (03:12)
Chomping and splicing, your gums sliced to shreds
Tattered bloody ribbons, incisored skin is shred
Scraping on sore teeth, cracking and chipping
Shredding and mincing raw nerve endings
Salivating - sanguis, phlegm, froth and foam
Masticating - your mandible stripped to the bone
Mangling your tongue, bloody torn and dripping
The swollen savage muscle frayed and blistering
Your vocal chords severed, your lips are mutilated
Masticating carved palate as your mouth is grated
Only raw gargles croak from your throat
A trickling death-rasp as you choke
A silly grin carved from ear to ear
Spurting mucus and tongue as your wind-pipe tears
Gaping and sore
The rusty razors bore
Skin hangs and seeps
Peptic ulcers bleed
Your mouth is a sea of cartilage, rabid saliva bleeds
Swallowing shredded tongue and pulverized, crunching teeth
Respirating a bolus of rusty razor blades
Asphyxiating bloody garotte, tearing your jugular vein
22 Malignant Defecation (02:15)
Dried, rotting, flaking, rancid flesh
Crumbling tissue - nothing left
Cancerous, mouldy, septic infestation
Smouldering decay of defecation
Your bowels now play host to pestilent decay
Waiting dormantly, it knows you're easy prey
See the corpse, smell the rot
Rigor mortis sets in like a frost
Lacerated arteries, entrails in a mess
The dry, stale smell of long rotted flesh
See the corpse, smell the warmth
As its cold, grey insides fester and burn
The guts may melt, but the torso remains
As the jellified innards turn into methane
[Finale:] ultimate excretion of rabid globular neoplasm
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Other reviews
By Apple_of_sodomY
"Reek of Putrefaction is like a piece of bread filled with nails, which... brings horrendous pains."
The ultra-fast tempos give rise to an atmosphere of suffering and sadism, with some hints of the pornographic but never vulgar.
By JohnHolmes
"'Reek of Putrefaction' is a true sonic massacre that can amaze in less than forty minutes."
"Violence, speed, and perversion define the album rather than technical precision."
By assurdino
The singer’s voice, absurdly caricature-like, and reminiscent of a parody of the exorcist. Which, honestly, makes you laugh, really laugh.
I just wanted to be free and wild... Instead, in the end, I just had a couple of laughs.
By Eie
This album is almost universally considered the first Goregrind album in history.
It has a very interesting atmosphere as well as a greatly undervalued historical significance.
By Spettri
Music which, like all of goregrind, is not to be taken seriously; otherwise, the unfortunate listener would have serious problems dealing with such macabre fantasies.
I give it the highest rating for its historical importance and for laying the groundwork for a genre like goregrind.
