{"id":104856,"date":"2025-04-25T00:00:54","date_gmt":"2025-04-24T23:00:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/?p=104856"},"modified":"2025-05-09T12:47:36","modified_gmt":"2025-05-09T11:47:36","slug":"album-review-cancer-inverted-world","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/album-review-cancer-inverted-world\/","title":{"rendered":"CANCER – Inverted World (2025) | Album \/ EP Reviews @ Metal Forces Magazine"},"content":{"rendered":"

CANCER
Inverted World<\/strong><\/span>
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\nPeaceville (2025)<\/span>
Rating: 5\/10<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

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After the zombified stodge of their 1990 debut platter To The Gory End<\/em>, British death metallers Cancer appeared to be going places by the time their sophomore outing Death Shall Rise<\/em> hit the racks in 1991. Damn, the Shropshire shrews even managed to enlist the talents of American axeman James Murphy who had appeared, albeit briefly, for American heavyweights Death and Obituary and went onto feature for Testament among others.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, the 90s was a strange and diverse climate for the metal scene and to move with the times Cancer shifted styles. In spite of 1993\u2019s The Sins Of Mankind<\/em> maintaining the death thrash vibe, the 1995 opus Black Faith<\/em> with its industrial influences most certainly signalled the beginning of the end. However, Cancer would return a decade later but clearly hadn\u2019t learned their lesson with Spirit In Flames<\/em> (2005). This time the band would adopt a tepid Machine Head-style of groove metal and many were left scratching their head at such incompetent hogwash.<\/p>\n

Fast forward then to 2018 and the return once again of Cancer, but this time Shadow Gripped<\/em><\/a> seemed to bring back to the surface a seemingly sunken ship. Frontman John Walker had resorted back to his ravenous gnashing and musically the death thrash tumult was in place. It\u2019s a shame of course that once again a lot of time has passed before the combo came up with this latest effort, Inverted World<\/em>, but thankfully it\u2019s still the Cancer we want… or is it? Walker, who also plays guitar as you should all know, is now the only surviving founding member following the departures of John Buchanan (bass) and Carl Stokes (drums) in 2022. And having relocated to Madrid in Spain, Walker has recruited three local musicians in the form of guitarist Robert Navajas, bassist Daniel Maganto and drummer Gabriel Valc\u00e1zar.<\/p>\n

With Inverted World<\/em> there isn\u2019t a great departure from Shadow Gripped<\/em>, although this outing is heavier. It was the track \u2018Amputate\u2019 (the subject being the cruelties of colonisation) that I heard first and I must admit I found it rather dull and one dimensional, but this aside the album does boast plenty of good moments although it still leaves me with the feeling that Cancer\u2019s career remains patchy, confused and in permanent limbo.<\/p>\n

\u2018Enter The Gates\u2019 opens the album and is rather underwhelming in spite of its heavy mid-tempo groove, and after a few spins it\u2019s obvious that while steadying the boat is important, moving forward seems impossible for Walker. Much of what is offered here is bog standard old school death metal with uninspiring vocals, and \u201cuninspiring\u201d is a word that pretty much sums up the career of Cancer.<\/p>\n

As the album unravels I\u2019m rarely fazed by an offering that just exists alongside the mediocrity, and only occasionally am I buoyed by a song like \u2018Test Site\u2019 which boasts a Voivod-esque formation, but the thrills are too few and far between. As I said, it is<\/em> a heavier album than Shadow Gripped<\/em> and yet apart from a few leads circa Death\u2019s Spiritual Healing<\/em> (1990) it\u2019s just lukewarm.<\/p>\n

Walker\u2019s vocals attempt to dominate through the weak production but he just doesn\u2019t have the presence to take the bull by the horns and drive the band on. When the thrashy \u2018Until They Died\u2019 weaves its way out of the mud I\u2019m thankful of such liveliness because so much of this record is mid-paced slogging. But even when some tracks (\u2018Covert Operations\u2019) promise a spark it\u2019s quickly snuffed out by laborious chugging.<\/p>\n

Sure, I understand the charm of meat n\u2019 potatoes death metal, but the stuff served up here is stale. The likes of \u201839 Bodies\u2019, \u2018When Killing Isn\u2019t Murder\u2019 and \u2018Jesus For Eugenics\u2019 are all tired, sluggish constructions coated in an overwhelming drabness. It\u2019s a shame, but what Inverted World<\/em> does is finally confirm that Cancer has had their day, and even if they want to prove me wrong I no longer have the patience.<\/p>\n

Neil Arnold<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

CANCERInverted World Peaceville (2025)Rating: 5\/10 After the zombified stodge of their 1990 debut platter To The Gory End, British death metallers Cancer appeared to be going places by the time their sophomore outing Death Shall Rise hit the racks in 1991. Damn, the Shropshire shrews even managed to enlist the talents of American axeman James […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,4167],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-104856","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-album-ep-reviews","category-cancer"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104856","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=104856"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104856\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":104860,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104856\/revisions\/104860"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=104856"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=104856"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=104856"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}