Very little could have been as predictable in the 90s as the Carcass break up. I know people would strongly disagree, but as one gives a careful listen to their last album, Swansong, one easily comes up to this conclusion. A band that went from the revolutionary death/grind of Reek of Putrefaction and Symphonies of Sickness to the tight hard rock simplicity of Heartwork and Swansong just can’t get away without scars. That’s why I felt such urge to write about this English quartet’s final straw, which ended a brilliant career with one of the best releases of the 90s.  

We all know bands attribute to ‘musicianship development’ their new musical directions (which, in some cases, serve as an alibi to mask their real intentions such as trying to expand through a new market etc) and I reckon that’s exactly where the main reason for the break up lies. There are two types of ‘development’: the first is when a band injects new influences to their music while maintaining its basic characteristics intact, and the second is when a band decides to go blindly for some new sound and one can’t barely recognize who’s playing (nevermind if it’s good or bad music). The impact Swansong caused when it was released was so violent that many people just couldn’t believe that were Carcass. Fourteen years later, it’s much easier to get less shocked as one can give a good listen to Heartwork – and even  Necroticism - Descanting the Insalubrious – and realize that things didn’t just change forenight. Pick a song like ‘Embodiment’, for example. It already announced what new directions the band was to take if they decided to go for what was influencing them at the moment. And that’s exactly what happened.

And if the honesty of Swansong blatantly jumps to views, that’s because their minds were already tripping on something else rather than the brutal death metal and grindcore from the early days. Guitarist Bill Steer, for instance, formed his 70s oriented stoner rock band Firebird (where he also sings) as soon as he left Carcass, and not far away went Michael Amott with Spiritual Beggars. Even Jeff Walker embarked on a crazy country cover songs project! No wonder Swansong contains eleven rock n’ roll driven songs, all of them with moderate pace and focused on simplicity and made by versatile musicians who once used to make some of the most disjointed noise in recent times. The four opening tracks are unbeatable: ‘Keep on Rotting in the Free World’, ‘Tomorrow Belongs to Nobody’, ‘Blackstar’ and ‘Cross My Heart’ introduce us to the rules of the game for being melodic, firm and extraordinarily well arranged, with each note claiming its importance within the compositions as a whole – what makes all serious appreciators of good music feel the urge to give the album a few extra and accurate listenings. Ken Owen also shows himself as a master of rhythms, proving that his playing and arranging skills are of very high level.  

While the music on Swansong definitely proved to be radically different, what really seems to have given a turn of 180 degrees was the lyrical section. Jeff Walker had always been the responsible for the lyrics and since Heartwork he was showing intentions of going beyond the subtle and pleasant thematic that helped to define the band’s personality, like genital maiming and solvent substances abuse. It was only natural then that the changes would come from within. It seems easy to assume that such maturity and accurate socio-political consciousness were boiling – and growing – in the frontman’s mind for quite a while. 
Walker actually said that Swansong is an underestimated album even by the band itself. This is probably due to the turbulent time they were going through, with constant change of second guitarist, drug abuse, label pressure, conflicts between the three thinking persons of the band (Walker, Owen and Steer)… When I said, right at the top, that the end of Carcass was predictable, I meant that the band reached such a level of changes that it took them far away from what made them famous in the first place. On the other hand, for the musicians, it was vital to go searching for new horizons. If their comeback, last year, didn’t result in a new album, that’s because the band had already reached its artistic limit; go back to playing death metal would go against the musicians’ convictions, and remain on the same direction they last took would represent stagnation.

Even though Swansong has never had the pretention of turning the metal scene inside-out, it clearly did so. Therefore, not only for that, but also for its undeniable musical quality, it must be remembered whenever possible.

 Alexandre Bury