Cancer Death Shall Rise

Cancer 'Death Shall Rise' (Vinyl Solution, 1991)

Opening with their 'classic' 'Hung, Drawn and Quartered' ('Blood then drained out, in a gory way......Severed into quarters, rigor mortis sets in') Cancer deliver probably the most meat and potatoes death metal imaginable; boring lyrics, terrible Scott Burns/Morrisound production, crap cover and James Murphy (Death, Obituary, Testament et al) on guitar.

Murphy actually adds the only sliver of originality to the record although once you've heard one of his solos you've heard them all. At least he's recognisable which stands him apart from the journeymen performances elsewhere. The drumming is truly awful; Burns has certainly nullified any life Carl Stokes might have in his playing by nailing his awful Bill Andrews' snare sound perfectly.

It's a real conundrum what Burns does to rhythm sections; Igor Cavalera sounds magnificent on 'Beneath the Remains' as does Pete Sandoval on 'World Downfall', but Bill Andrews/Terry Butler sound awful on 'Leprosy' and that is the sound which Cancer have used as their template. Maybe it's the fact that Burns couldn't actually detract from the undeniably brilliance of Cavalera and Sandoval's musicianship and if you are a mediocre player then Burns cannot help but reveal those inadequacies, which was certainly his argument when he recorded Mick Harris of Napalm Death.

We saw Cancer in 1990 supporting Decide, Glen Benton provides backing vocals on the opening track, and they blew the petulant and uninspiring Satanic Floridians off the stage. I wish I had seen that show years later as I'm sure I would have enjoyed Benton's manic gargling and eye rolling, particularly when somebody shouted 'Merry Christmas!', much more when I was a fully-fledged Deicide zealot.

However, at this time I think Pringle was the only one who had 'Deicide', on CD no less, and it had not been fully understood. We went to the gig more out of morbid curiosity and Cancer's safe take on Bolt Thrower/Death/Obituary made much more of an impression that the raging fury displayed by Benton and company. Incidentally, Deicide's Steve Asheim is another drummer who escaped Burns' audio equivalent of neutering, but I think that just further proves my theory that class will always prevail.

Based on their performance with Deicide we persevered with Cancer for at least another two gigs, but they never became favourites. Cancer were a well-loved British band who were constantly praised by their contemporaries, Karl Willets in particular, but this album is dull and very pedestrian.

Cheers