Left Hand Pathology

Very few bands, if any, take seventeen years to come up with an album, especially a debut effort. Okay, so Axl Rose will most likely be on the verge of that at one point with the ever-promised release of “The Chinese Democracy” but it’s unheard of in Death Metal anyway. Still, after such a long period of inactivity in which only a few EPs were ever produced, General Surgery have finally got around to releasing “Left Hand Pathology”, a good old-fashioned Death Metal album that absolutely reeks of the glory days of Carcass.

Imagine Carcass had made a follow up to “Necroticism: Descanting The Insalubrious” that didn’t see them veer off into melodic Death Metal territory, but instead stuck with the winning formula they discovered on said album. This is pretty much as accurate a description as you’ll get regarding the sound of General Surgery’s debut full-length, each song sounding very much influenced by the UK Death Metal pioneers. Nonetheless, much like their Swedish contemporaries Bloodbath, the band do not shy away from discussing their major influence and see any potential plagiarism as more of an homage to their heroes. Tracks such as “Ambulance Chaser” and “Convivial Corpse Disposal Methodology” sound like they could be taken from unreleased Carcass sessions, were it not for their far beefier production quality. Such similarities are great to hear though, since the majority of classic Death Metal bands strayed from their original sounds and often experimented so much that they seemed to lose their identity within the genre (listen to any latter day Morbid Angel for the perfect example).

However ‘retro’ their style may seem to a modern Death Metal enthusiast though, it still manages to sound fresh and exciting, again because no one is making music quite like this anymore. There’s an obvious Grindcore influence, of course, on mega brief tracks such as “Mucopurulent Mayhem”, “Necrodecontamination” and the excellently-titled “Viva! Blunt Force Trauma” which adds to the authenticity of General Surgery’s musical approach, honestly coming off as though they’ve been stuck in the late ‘80s the entire time that they’ve been inactive. These faster rhythmic sections are balanced well with several more mid-paced sections, such as the tremendous double-bass behind “Decomposer” and the tremendous closing minute of opener “If These Walls Could Talk”. With so many bands nowadays playing more accessible styles of Metal within an ever more incestuous scene, it’s almost as if they’ve forgotten where their inspiration lies. Evidently, here is a band who haven’t and the shifts in dynamics throughout the album make for a more enjoyable and erratic listen.

The material here is nothing a lot of older Metal fans haven’t heard before, but what General Surgery evidently lack in originality, they seem to have made up for in timing. If this album had been in the early ‘90s, they’d most likely have been labelled nothing more than a rip off band. But, as the typical melodic Death Metal sound is becoming more and more prevalent in the Metal scene, “Left Hand Pathology” really is a breath of old, putrid yet strangely fresh air.

Originally written for www.blastwave.co.uk