By: Anders

Posted: Jul 20, 2006

The cult it alive, and more kicking than ever. The Carcass worshippers of Sweden, General Surgery is now ready with their debut full length album "Left Hand Pathology", after releasing heaps of demos and EPs, in their active years, first from the start in 1988 to 1991 and then from 2000 and still going strong.

I might have started out with calling General Surgery Carcass worshippers, and that is to a certain extent the truth, though the band adds much more to their music, and delivers their own brand of gory death metal infused grind. Razorsharp guitar riffs, delivered with a raw and crunchy sound, drawing you into their vortex, and keep you paralyzed throughout the session. There are many catchy riffs, and good melodic leads thrown in at selected places, spicing it up. The rhythms are straight ahead, with a small wicked breaks added here and there. The kick drum work is nice and follows the guitar riffs pretty well, the rest of the drumming is good as well, perfect for the havoc the guitars wreck. The way the drums and guitars work together on, is quite good and complete. The deep and rumbling bass controls the rhythm and keeps the bottom heavy as fuck. On top of the well-played music, we have the sick and guttural growl from Grant McWilliams, the only remaining original member, and co-founder of the band back in the days. The growl is very well delivered and adds the last bit of insanity to the universe of General Surgery and puts a good drive to the music, it more or less works as an extra instrument.

14 well made pieces of metal, are what we get on this album. The compositions flow in blood red streams, delighting the listener, forcing the head to nod to the driving guitar riffing. The whole of the album is incredible catchy, without it looses a bit of brutality or sickness, the overall impression is quite raw, due to the great heavy production, which adds that certain edge to the music, that gives it the last kick. This album is a feast for most fans of gory grind/death and most certain all fans of the first couple of Carcass albums. The music has become more structured than General Surgery's early cult material, though that's not that strange, though the band has stayed faithful to their sound and expression and that is way cool, and then the material seems very fresh and the band is energetic as hell. Even though this album contains gory and ugly death/grind, it makes me in a damn good mood!

Rating: 8/10

General Surgery website

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