Embedded Files
PHARMACIST "Vertebrae After Vertebrae"
PHARMACIST "Vertebrae After Vertebrae"
By Dr. Abner Mality
PHARMACIST returns and the prescription is MAYHEM! I've been hoping to hear more from this mysterious pharmaceutical specialist with a taste for CARCASS-flavored grindcore. Their last album "Flourishing Extremities On Unspoiled Medical Grounds" wound up being my favorite record for 2022 and one I return to often. That effort was an absolute masterclass in how to create great riffs and songs both. So what about "Vertebrae After Veterbrae"?
It was always going to be very tough to beat "Flourishing Extremities..." and I can't say this does,but it has all the PHARMACIST trademarks. Overall, it's a more direct and less obviously progressive platter. "Propelling Inwards" and the title track start the album with cuts that are shorter than the lengthy workouts of the previous album and also less complicated. They are straight up blasts of CARCASS-flavored grinding intensity, with Mr. Pharmacist and his drum mate Therapist sounding tight.
But the genius of this band gradually and subtly reveals its hand as the album proceeds. The two longest tracks, "Endogenica" and "Mimicing The Organics", are complex laboratories where riffs and tempos are experimented with. They both move so smoothly from riff to riff, it's like an aural jigsaw puzzle...the latter song in particular has a shift to a doomy grind that made me tingle with glee! Yet the songs are still more compact than those on "Flourishing Extremities..."
"Lazure Sphacelation" and "Bubonic Malacia Bloom" have got a lot of the melodic sickness of "Necroticism..."era CARCASS to them, but PHARMACIST never goes the overmelodic path that "Heartwork" and especially "Swansong" developed. This still grinds! The album wraps up with a real epic in "Zenith Of Mnemonic Foresication"...the last couple of minutes hit the heights of beautiful extreme metal composition. And as you can see, the band's preference for $50 medical terminology endures...
This album will for sure make my year end Top 10 list. But will it hit the very top? Probably not. Pick this sucker up anyway!
Report abuse