癫狂的快感 / Pleasure of Mania

Having your album cover censored is probably not very useful when trying to attract a larger audience, especially not if the replacement cover art reminds one more of the techno-industrial fever dream of a teenager than the brutal death you were originally going for. Anyway, we’re looking at 腐尸 Cankered Corpse’s debut full-length 癫狂的快感 / Pleasure of Mania, which bears the interesting distinction of being slightly shorter than their demo despite containing twice the number of songs. That signals an enormous difference in songwriting approach, although in theory the aim hasn’t changed much, only the means of achieving it. Whereas the demo preferred creepy quiet sections to build suspense and then oddly-produced death metal to ambush the listener, this 2005 release goes the tried and tested route of snuff movie samples followed by lots of blasting and indecipherable brutal vocals, which takes as much influence from grindcore as death metal.

I think we’ll look at the vocals first because there’s not much you can say about the higher-pitched and faster contributions of Zhang Lei except that he sounds like he’s trying to either spit excrement out of his mouth as quickly as possible or possibly make funny faces at a baby in order to induce laughter. However, the deep guttural tone with which he does it is certainly appropriate for this kind of brutal death, so there’s not much chance of the baby being pleased. The production is a great step up from the demo too, the drums getting a good deal on all parts of the kit, especially the louder snare that emphasizes blasts, though there is also opportunity for other styles too. The riffing isn’t as much of a feature as it could be since the pace changes frequently and the all-out assault of many sections leaves little room for variation; however, I suppose ‘Rain of Blood Falling from Sky’ shows the guitars at their best, crawling out of a nasty sample with sludgy intransigence and then suddenly attacking with pure grind madness.

Other songs have the same kind of variation, particularly those that venture over two minutes, while ‘Face of Immoral Conduct’ shows the possibility of technicality when a fill shreds out over grim chugging, though melody and lead play is notably absent elsewhere. The easiest way to tell the difference between the early stages of the band and Pleasure of Mania (apart from listening to the demo) is to check out ‘Quick Asphyxia’ and ‘Mayhem’, which are the two last tracks on the album and were previously recorded in much different form. The latter of the two is the longest cut here at about three minutes and makes use of its time to pursue deep death metal riffing in its purest form, then a miniature bass interlude that nods to the older recording before a bludgeoning conclusion that also helps Qi Shi’s instrument stand out.

I wouldn't say this album has much to offer that you've missed elsewhere, though the tone of the guitars is pleasing, as is the heavy brutality that continues for the duration. It isn't my cup of tea exactly and a few of the songs don't stick in my mind, but Pleasure of Mania is great for a quick blast of stress release when you're feeling murderous.


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