Dead Infection Surgical Disembowelment

Dead Infection ‘Surgical Disembowelment’ (Morbid Records, 1993)

In 2005 Fraser and I began making a regular pilgrimage to Europa Music in Stirling. I can’t remember how I first stumbled across Europa, I think I had heard faint whisperings of it from other record enthusiasts, but when I walked into the massive back room/portakabin for the first time I knew it was somewhere special.

Like Really Good Records, you weren’t always guaranteed premier league gems, and in common with every second hand record shop in Scotland you could always get multiple copies of Marillion’s entire back catalogue. However, for those first five or so visits Fray and I would always leave with at least £30 worth of top quality vinyl.

Whoever stocked Europa had either run a distro in the early 90s or had bought whole distros/collections wholesale. Not only would you find pristine second hand copies of Onslaught and Celtic Frost, but brand new, unplayed records from obscure death metal and thrash labels were easily obtainable.

‘Surgical Disembowelment’ is one of those gems; an early release on the cult grind/death label Morbid Records. The package is completely mint with full inserts and poster and cost me all of £4. Unfortunately, after those initial pillages both Fray and I were resorting to buying Twisted Sister and Motley Crue records which we could have got anywhere meaning we could have avoided Stirling’s hideous pubs and the man who looked like a zombie Asterix character, whose ultra-bulbous drinker’s nose was almost dripping off his face. Having said that, The Tap wasn’t that bad!

Also around this time I was living at my sister’s, my ma’s and at the Redeemer’s as I had moved out of my house rather sharply after a domestic dispute. So Fray kindly stored all the records from our visits, roughly 60, in his living room for about five months. Europa certainly got me through some hard times!

It won’t surprise those who are in the know that Dead Infection are a gore grind band and as such are fervent fans of Carcass. The lyrics are entirely based on decomposition and bodily functions and the songs have titles like ‘Pathological view on the Alimentary Canal’. Every song features subsonic Bill Steer style vocals and a hideous guitar tone taken straight from ‘Symphonies of Sickness’. These Poles are certainly good at what they do and are one of the first major Carcass copycats so the production sounds perfect, not like the modern day ultra-sheened imitators or indeed what the originators themselves became.

‘Surgical Disembowelment’ is by no means a masterpiece, but it has its moments driven by an immersive, swirling heaviness which recalls Carcass and early Grave at their best.

Peace

PS Here’s hoping Kaius Maximus doesn’t get a Dead Infection in his recently shattered leg!

PPS Another alphabetical misstep!