Carcass, the legends of melodic death metal and godfathers of grindcore are back! Well, they have been back on the live stage for a couple of years, but now we have a new studio album! Surgical Steel is their 6th full-length release and it is probably one of the most anticipated metal releases of 2013. I for one have been looking forward to this release A LOT.

Just let me give you a little bit of personal background here. Carcass was the band that got me into extreme metal. First with Symphonies of Sickness, but more so with their eponymous 3rd album Necroticism – Descanting the Insalubrious, which was my portal to extreme metal. The production was spot on, heavy, in your face metal with beautifully sounding guitar parts and thick heavy as fuck drums. They reinvented themselves on this album by creating a sound that can best be described as a mix between death metal and progressive grindcore.

Then Carcass did the ground-breaking album Heartwork, which opened the doors to the melodic death metal genre, leaving the grindcore more behind, although still at times hitting the ferocious blast beats. This album destined to become another classic, together with Necroticism cited as most influential extreme metal releases. Heartwork was followed by Swansong, which never hit the same level as the previous ground breaking albums, although it was perhaps their easiest accessible album creating a bigger metal fan base.

Now 17 years down the line I’m listening to a new Carcass album, Surgical Steel. And I am pleasantly surprised, as it’s bloody damn good and it’s basically Carcass as we know them from the old days. From the opening seconds of ‘1985’ (a nice reference to the year Carcass was born), the so familiar Carcass sound is instantly obvious. No other band manages that melodic guitar tone as Carcass does. After this brief guitar-only 1 minutes and 15 seconds intro track we literally blast into ‘Thrasher’s Abattoir’, where another part of Carcass’ characteristic sound hits you, that typical drumming, riffing and grinding with those familiar vocals snarling towards you. One thing Carcass always did to me was singing “clearly” and understandably and having a very typical drum sound. I salute Dan Wilding for stepping up and taking the tough, but very well performed job of sitting behind the drum kit for this much anticipated Carcass release. How Dan kicks of ‘The Master Butcher's Apron’ can only be described as phenomenal grindcore drumming.

The whole album builds upon this melodic death metal sound which made the band so big after releasing Heartwork. They throw plenty of melodic guitar solos and riffs at the listener and even little details on how drummer Dan hits the bell of his cymbal in the first verse of ‘The Granulating Dark Satanic Mills’ is something we used to hear on the earlier Carcass releases as for example on Heartwork’s ‘No Love Lost’.

Overall I feel like the second half of Surgical Steel is on the slightly stronger side than the first half of the record. There is just a little bit more aggression and grind happening on those last songs. And not to forget the shivers inducing dual guitar solo in ‘Captive Bolt Pistol’ at around 2:13 in, which is something spectacular all together. The way the guitars follow that beautiful sounding double bass drum is something which almost brought me to tears, that’s how beautiful this sounds. My definition of classical music brought to you by grindcore legends Carcass. But again this is not something new to their style as similar dual guitar solos were explored on the earlier releases as well, such as on one of Heartwork’s best tracks ‘Carnal Forge’

Was I expecting a new Necroticism or Heartwork? Well, if I’m honest with you, a little bit yes, but obviously I was just fooling myself. Surgical Steel doesn’t come close to Necroticism, but it does sit very close to Heartwork. So, where does Surgical Steel fit in then? It’s a solid album and a lot better than what I was hoping for since many big bands having a comeback only seem to release albums which only utterly disappoint. So in terms of a comeback album Carcass did very well here. Compared to what’s been released on the extreme metal front so far this year I actually think that Surgical Steel beats many releases.

They haven’t done anything really new on Surgical Steel and this release isn’t particularly ground-breaking, but who cares. They’re Carcass and what they do they do extremely well. If have any respect for these godfathers of extreme metal then you should get your copy ordered now. It won’t disappoint you and I’m sure you’ll find Surgical Steel back in many metal fans’ end of the year lists.