Cadaver

Groundbreaking dark metal band from Norway.

Cadaver - Hallucinating Anxiety (1990)
Cadaver - ...In Pains (1992)

Earache

1992

Production: Light and clean adaptation of bass heavy sound.

Review: A prescient band emerging late in the influence of Scandinavian death metal, Cadaver merged the rising trend toward melodic composition in death and black metal with a tendency toward progressive music with intensive rhythmic pause and inflection used for structural purposes. Within this idea, this Norwegian band made intelligent and highly inventive death metal with riffing which, similarly to the work of Austrians Disharmonic Orchestra, converges into dark and confusing passages of sound in which it wanders before emerging.

Tracklist:

1. Bypassed
2. Mr. Tumor's Misery
3. Into The Outside
4. Blurred Vision
5. Runaway Brain
6. Inner Persecution
7. In Distortion
8. The Misanthrope
9. Ins-Through Mental
10. During The End
Length: 44:55

Portraits of neurosis, each work has to invent its own nothingness before any desire it has toward completion emerges, at which point intricate self-reflective patterns cycle down the conceptual levels of their own creation to self-reduce toward nothingness. The resulting music adeptly changes direction in midair and brings its melodies home with percussive, uneven resolution, using synchronized strumming of power chord notes in even phrases which slide on expectation and pause adroitly before resuming into recognizable cadence. Influences of Swedish death metal are present in the exacting flutterstrum which shapes textures from reverberant columns of electric sound.

Where this album is strong, the distinctive flavor of its understated but potently rhythmic riffing and long linear developments within songs binds its gathered influences into a narrative shaped by the same hand and thus, an organic fusion of metal to date. In its depths of expression, this release falls in metal history alongside the first Darkthrone album as an effort to make dark metal, between the aggression of death and the somber nature of other morbid music, which moved the mind into a hypnotic ambience of negativity and disillusionment. More than in black metal in the status quo, emotional or logical statements exchange more rapidly within songs yet the haunting comfort in nothingness is still present in stygian immersion.

1. Tuba (Intro)
2. Ignominous Eczema
3. Corrosive Delirium
4. Hallucinating Anxiety
5. Cannibalistic Dissection
6. Petrifyed Faces
7. Innominate
8. Twisted Collapse
9. Abnormal Deformity
20. Maelstrom
21. Mental Abherrance
22. Bodily Trauma
Length: 39:15

Hallucinating Anxiety (Necrosis 1990)
In a primitive state of complexity resembling musically educated grindcore, the first album from Cadaver is a death metal hybrid with black metal in the style of Merciless or early Mayhem bearing influences of grinding death of the oldest school (Asphyx, Obituary) integrated into its stream of consciousness with the deft tremolo strumming popularized by the Swedes. For this time, this album was ahead of the curve with harsh open-throated vocals in contrast to the guttural thunder of most death metal, and attempted a complexity of interlocking structures in evenly-distributed linear patterns that rivals that of Neurosis for schizophrenic logic. Interestingly, guitars create tempo over constant drums as the basis of technique, calling to mind the offbeat sliding tones of later black metal. While these musicians introduced many innovations and influenced others no doubt to a great degree, their music remains placed behind its stylistic creation because of prevalent characteristics that anchor it firmly in the old school, but these are unobtrusive to listeners from that genre. Churning riffs and familiar patterns kept this album competitive with the death metal of its day, yet its experimental and more morbid side made it distinctive at the time for its eccentric aggression.