One Time Only -- The Gods Of Grind Return!

If Napalm Death is generally regarded as the act that founded the extreme form of heavy metal known as grindcore, then Carcass is the band that elevated that genre to high art.

Carcass was, of course, right there alongside Napalm in the beginning and even once shared guitarist and creative force Bill Steer, whose signature riffing style helped form the foundation of each band’s sound. To be sure, the first two Carcass offerings lived up to people’s expectations of grindcore at the time, which is to say that they pretty much sound like shit (a fact that endears those records to the band’s fans and didn’t prevent a rabid response when they came out). But the band’s third album, the deliciously tongue-twistingly titled Necroticism—Descanting the Insalubrious, proved once and for all that grindcore was no joke and effectively set the bar by which metal bands still measure themselves today.

Yes, for much of the band’s career, bassist/lyricist Jeff Walker kept his tongue firmly planted in his cheek with his gloriously disgusting, anatomically-fixated lyrics, but Carcass’ vegetarian agenda to present humans as meat conveyed a sense of humor and wit that no other metal band has ever touched. Bands like Cattle Decapitation and Exhumed have attempted the same schtick but could never play it to such great effect and seemed to miss the point entirely. The band even liked to give its guitar solos beautifully over-the-top titles. But underneath it all lies music of sheer brilliance. Many bands since have shown off what they can do technically; few have achieved that magic chemistry that the classic Carcass lineup had in spades.

The band flamed-out in 1996 after garnering the most favorable commercial response of its career with 1993’s Heartwork, and this reunion looks to be a one-shot deal, so get it while you can. Sadly, founding drummer Ken Owen—one of metal’s all-time greats and the band’s original medical terminology afficionado—remains unable to participate as his memory has never recovered from the brain hemorrhage he suffered in ’99. While his absence would under any other circumstances be a deal-breaker, Owen is at least prominently featured in the tour photo above, and fans will no doubt be happy to have a chance to see Carcass at all. Even the most casual metalhead should head down to the Nokia tomorrow night for this invaluable slice of metal history.