Cartilage

Cartilage are the better half of Swedish-style death metal, tending toward the heavy and epic simultaneously with the musical and intricate, far beyond split album mates Altar who are relatively boring. Interesting structures and intense rhythms.

The Fragile Concept of Affection
Drowned
1992

Production: FM, a few steps above AM. Muddy and somewhat distorted, dulled and backgrounded, but still audible.
Review: Aiming to pummel with recursive rhythm and internal interplay between syncopated blasts and slices of silence, the music of Cartilage works within the established parameters of Swedish death metal to give significance through melody and narrative to the narrow collections of power chords connected by rhythm. With established technique and aesthetic, this band focus attention in the unique textures and shapes of phrase here put to direct and violent percussion.
Guitars work in power chords with an emphasis less on faster strumming and integration of polyrhythm than on, in the style of Amorphis, an essential melodic tendency emerging through darkly colliding single-strum chords. As a forerunner to much of black and death metal to come, this band for technicality extend melodies to modulating patterns of self-recursive but intricate exploration. Musicality does not ascend to levels of great innovation, as there is nothing new in technique here, but the music escapes predictability and restrains itself to what is appropriate and integral to the songs.

Tracklist:

Altar "Ex Oblivione"
1. Nothing Human (4:03)
2. Lifeless Passion (3:24)
3. Decapitated (new version) (3:33)
4. Daymare/A Message From the Grave (4:52)
5. Ex Oblivione (5:25)
Bonus tracks:
6. Severed on the Attic (5:19)
7. No Flesh (5:49)
Cartilage "The Fragile Concept of Affection"
8. The Underworld (4:16)
9. Afterlife Sorrow (Infernal Paradise II) (4:47)
10. Why Do I watch the Dawn? (4:35)
11. Consanguine to Understanding (4:57)
12. Blessing in Depths (2:26)
Bonus tracks:
13. Intro/The Altar (5:54)
14. Ether Depression (5:05)
Length: 64:27

Copyright © 1992 Drowned Productions

Guitar riffs wander all over the spectrum, from simple chunky riffs to more complex, vaguely progressive heavy metal styles. Where at top performance said riffs are exceptional, with unique phrasing and melody (convergent from the edges of immediate harmonic relevance), and all fit into songs that are slightly discontiguous yet powerful and artistic. The art of brooding phrases under riffs and tempo changes both in rhythm section and guitar speed is not forgotten here, and to the great advantage of this music: a highly unique and expressive form of death metal.