Description

2020 vinyl re-release on full dynamic range edition with censored artwork.

The title alone. Anyone taking the lyrical content here even slightly seriously — and that includes the bandmembers — clearly needs to be taken away by the nice men in the white jackets. Thoughtfully, complete lyrics are provided — thus, a verse from “Vomited Anal Tract”: “Your vagus implodes, as nausea strikes/Savaging your body in terminal retch/Violent spasms and decaying enzymes/Engulf your throat as you belch.” That this or anything else on the album is completely impossible to understand otherwise is part of the insane fun, of course, which is why Carcass is both one of the best and funniest bands around. Musically everything is basically just one step away from Napalm Death’s early sound, if even that far, but there’s something just that much more engagingly nutty about what Carcass do. It might be the way that Bill Steer’s guitar solos sound like they’re turning themselves inside out every time he plays one (with blood dripping from exposed musculature and so forth, no doubt). Alternately, it might be how Ken Owen matches early Mick Harris for sheer frazzle with drums played so fast everything sounds more like a wash of static than anything else. Whatever it is, Reek of Putrefaction consists of songs so immediate and there that trying to analyze them in depth is practically impossible — you accept it and let yourself go from the start or you never ever want to hear anything like it again. There are occasional moments of calm — “Genital Grinder,” which starts things off, begins with a low bass rumble and a great, chunky riff, a smart way to draw folks in before the final slaughter. Top everything off with the barked, whined, and yelped vocals of the threesome in full unintelligible glory, and Reek succeeds thoroughly and completely at what it does.

Track listing:
1. Genital Grinder
2. Regurgitation Of Giblets
3. Maggot Colony
4. Pyosisified (Rotten To The Gore)
5. Carbonized Eye Sockets
6. Frenzied Detruncation
7. Vomited Anal Tract
8. Festerday
9. Fermenting Innards
10. Excreted Alive
11. Suppuration
12. Foeticide
13. Microwaved Uterogestation
14. Feast On Dismembered Carnage
15. Splattered Cavities
16. Psychopathologist
17. Burnt To A Crisp
18. Pungent Excruciation
19. Manifestation Of Verrucose Urethra
20. Oxidised Razor Masticator
21. Mucopurulence Excretor
22. Malignant Defecation