{"id":73221,"date":"2018-10-07T00:01:01","date_gmt":"2018-10-07T00:01:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/?p=73221"},"modified":"2018-10-07T21:29:50","modified_gmt":"2018-10-07T21:29:50","slug":"album-review-cancer-shadow-gripped","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/album-review-cancer-shadow-gripped\/","title":{"rendered":"CANCER – Shadow Gripped (2018) | Album \/ EP Reviews @ Metal Forces Magazine"},"content":{"rendered":"

CANCER
Shadow Gripped<\/strong><\/span>
\n\"\"
\nPeaceville (2018)<\/span>
Rating: 7\/10<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

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Back with its original line-up is Cancer, the UK trio who wrecked my brain in the early 90s with blood-soaked debut To The Gory End<\/em> (1990) and its more technical follow-up Death Shall Rise<\/em> (1991). However, the following years weren\u2019t so kind to the death metallers in spite of 1993\u2019s The Sins of Mankind<\/em> being a decent affair, so I lost heart with Cancer, and I feel they did too.<\/p>\n

In fits and starts they released two more records; 1995\u2019s Black Faith<\/em> and ten years later the equally disappointing mish-mash known as Spirit In Flames<\/em> which incorporated groove stylings with a slightly unrecognizable and tepid thrash-cum death expression.<\/p>\n

I was unable to stay loyal to such deviations, yet felt rather excited to hear the guys were planning a return. And so here we are again with Cancer\u2019s sixth studio album featuring original members John Walker (vocals and guitar), Ian Buchanan (bass) and Carl Stokes (drums), with a press release for this ten-track affair promising \u201c… a crushing slab of death metal in the classic Cancer style\u201d.<\/p>\n

At first glance I didn\u2019t like the cover art, and still don\u2019t, and the album title doesn\u2019t sit right with me either, but onwards and upwards to the most important thing… the music.<\/p>\n

The first track is \u2018Down The Steps\u2019, where the guitar tones are ominous; an aching suspense fills the ears as Stokes simmers on the cymbals and then an interesting and abrasive chord emerges. But I\u2019m immediately dubious… why do I suddenly feel like I\u2019m back in the mid-90s rather than the early 90s? And why do Walker\u2019s vocals, for all their gnashing sensibilities, leave me a tad cold?<\/p>\n

For me this isn\u2019t Cancer at their most formidable or fusty. It\u2019s still a solid, chugging bursts of gnarly menace that builds pace nicely and features some killer hooks from Walker\u2019s guitar, but I just don\u2019t feel as if I\u2019ve been transported to the band in their prime, and maybe it\u2019s simply because too many years and average albums have passed.<\/p>\n

However, there\u2019s still some infectious, gore-soaked chunks to chew on, mainly in the form of the snappy, bludgeoning grind of \u2018Garrotte\u2019 with its thrashing haste, while \u2018Ball Cutter\u2019 \u2013 which includes a guest guitar solo from Anders Nystr\u00f6m (Bloodbath \/ Katatonia) \u2013 comes trudging with ominous designs, with a pounding rhythm section bolstered by Buchanan\u2019s rattling bass before the vocal spurts interrupt, bringing us into a slurping thrash pace before slower riffage ensues.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s good stuff, but it\u2019s not Cancer showing the myriad of modern bands how it\u2019s done. Instead, I feel that the trio has a lot of catching up to do. No wonder then that the hectic compositions stand out as blustery, thrashing heaps. \u2018Thou Shalt Kill\u2019 is a fast-paced, frothing heap full of tidy yet hasty percussion, and Stokes really comes into his own on \u2018The Infocidal\u2019 with its infectious chug, although with Walker\u2019s slurps and the hectic arrangements at times I\u2019m reminded of early Nocturnus only without the complexity.<\/p>\n

Elsewhere, \u2018Half Man, Half Beast\u2019 begins with enough drama to fill a cinema before the dark, hammering trudge comes in as vast black rolls of cement and flesh merge to create a classic Sepultura-styled heaviness, while \u2018Crimes So Vile\u2019 brings more catchy heaviness as Stokes\u2019 drums rattle and clank and Walker\u2019s melody digs in with its plodding drudgery, although its somewhat unremarkable even when it picks up speed.<\/p>\n

The title track is one of the fastest on offer; this one provides a healthy sprint of instrumentation and slight dissonance too due to the unusual guitar melody before the pace slows to a threatening trudge before the death \/ thrash bounding starts up again.<\/p>\n

At times I\u2019m reminded of Meathook Seed\u2019s underrated 1993 classic debut Embedded<\/em> due to some of the pallid exercises embarked upon by Cancer, but Shadow Gripped<\/em>, for all its solid riffing, does remain at times a bit uneventful and predictable.<\/p>\n

Closer \u2018Disposer\u2019 begins with further dissonant rumbles as a slow, menacing vibe entertains, but it takes two-minutes to finally pick up pace and even then it\u2019s not one to startle. Instead, we get mid-paced drudgery, the sort I\u2019d heard on The Sins of Mankind<\/em>. And that\u2019s where we\u2019re at with Shadow Gripped<\/em>, Cancer still able to drift solemnly into two main tempo patterns from that era although without much flair.<\/p>\n

The album is an improvement over the last few releases, but that should have been a given anyway, although whether Shadow Gripped<\/em> is enough to propel the guys back to the higher echelons of the genre, I\u2019m not so sure.<\/p>\n

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

CANCERShadow Gripped Peaceville (2018)Rating: 7\/10 Back with its original line-up is Cancer, the UK trio who wrecked my brain in the early 90s with blood-soaked debut To The Gory End (1990) and its more technical follow-up Death Shall Rise (1991). However, the following years weren\u2019t so kind to the death metallers in spite of 1993\u2019s […]<\/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-73221","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\/73221","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=73221"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73221\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":73222,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73221\/revisions\/73222"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=73221"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=73221"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=73221"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}