Cannibal Crematorium

Kam Lee isn't as well-known as he should be, but it's not because his influence isn't felt. He chooses to remain underground, and staying out of the spotlight is exactly what makes the legendary death metal frontman able to do so much in so little time. Perhaps he had a lot of old ideas sitting around from his decade-and-a-half hiatus from the scene, which is why he's released at minimum one record literally every year for the past 7 years. Or maybe he made his comeback in secret for the sake of doing things his way. Either way, Lee has been on an absolute roll lately, churning out solid albums like clockwork with his extensive amount of projects, carrying on the Massacre legacy better than the reformed Massacre themselves did. One of his absolute greatest bands is the cannibal-themed Bone Gnawer, who serve as a tribute to the sound of old Swedish death metal and lyrically pay homage to the goriest of the gory. While their first full-length "Feast of Flesh" was damn good, if derivative, their second and final album "Cannibal Crematorium" is a near-masterpiece of OSDM.

The album's opener is a compilation of news clips reporting real-life cannibalism, accompanied by an eerie background of white noise, revving chainsaws, screams of anguish, and other disturbing sounds, all of which seem to be from actual recordings. It goes on for over two minutes, which seems a bit long for an intro, but trust me, "The Anthropophagist Inferno" is not filler. It only serves as a testament to the songs, and it's a perfect indication of what's to come. The album is not playing games with you. It may be tongue-in-cheek like its predecessor, but it's executed in a more intricate unique way, and if the intro threw you aback, whoa, just wait until you hear the actual music. Know that this is not a DM album for the faint of heart; it really is scary as hell.

Every track is like getting your guts rapidly hacked to bits by a chainsaw. Kam's vocal performance on this record is living proof that he is one of the greatest to ever do it; even as he nears 50 years of age, he still sounds every bit as vicious as he did 25 years ago, if not more so, and his voice hasn't deteriorated at all. That's besides the point, however. The point is that his growls are the equivalent of the madman holding the chainsaw telling you that you are going to fucking die, and the musicians are the soundtrack to your body being destroyed. Or alternatively, you are having a lucid nightmare and this album is what you hear. Yeah, that's not as brutal of a description, but it fits.

Rogga Johansson does not play on this album, which isn't too much of a problem for me, since he's not really my favorite; I even established in one of my prior reviews that The Grotesquery and Bone Gnawer are only good because of Kam's presence, and that while he's a great guitar player, too many of his projects are mediocre as a whole and that I wouldn't go out of my way to listen to most of his shit since it all sounds the same. Instead, secondary guitarist Ronnie Bjornstrom goes at it alone, and he is a hell of lot more interesting in both execution and tone. His guitar playing is fantastic, and whatever tone he used on this record is something to be proud of. The third song "Chainsaw Carnage" is a pretty good representation of what he's about, and his playing in the breakdown complementing the screaming woman getting sawed up results in one of the most delightfully frightening moments I can recall in recent DM.

The lyrics are still kind of campy, but not nearly enough to drag the album down even a slight bit, and Lee is so damn good that he can make even the dumbest lyrics sound fucking evil. Even the penultimate "Untold Story: Human Pork Bun" sounds disturbing as hell despite the laughably stupid title. As for the drums, they go along damn near perfectly with the other instruments and sync up to the guitars like a magnet. If there was ever a selection of albums to prove that simplistic music can be excellent if the musicianship is precise enough, this would definitely be one of them, and you can thank Morgan Lie's drumming for that.

"Cannibal Crematorium" is absolute gold. The only way I could possibly imagine someone disliking it is if death metal isn't their thing. The tracks are so well-written and have just enough spices of originality to keep things interesting even for the most seasoned fan of the genre. It's something you've heard before, but done so well that it's impossible to complain about it. This is an album recommended for anybody who likes straightforward, old-fashioned, bludgeoning death metal music.