Incessant Desire for Palatable Flesh

Although Visceral Evisceration probably didn't have access to the same medical pathology textbooks Carcass did, the lyrical spirit is the same. Primarily interested in dismemberment, cannibalism, rape and more dismemberment, VE can barely be distinguished from Cannibal Corpse, Vomitory or the aforementioned Carcass in their early, glory days.

If one only reads the lyric sheet and never listens to the music, that is.

This is one of the oddest, most compelling and most hauntingly beautiful metal recordings I've ever encountered. Simply put, this is exquisite Doom Metal in the finest musical tradition of Thergothon and dISEMBOWELMENT. Slow coursing riffs fleshed out with crystalline lead guitar, acrobatic drumming, clean and growled male vocals, and one of the most arresting and gorgeously throated female vocalists extant, mesh to create an enticing atmosphere of paradoxical beauty. One can easily appreciate this album on a purely musical level since the Austrian band's vocalists sing with such heavy accents that the lyrics are quite difficult to discern, at least to American ears.

How can one even reconcile the juxtaposition of such tremendous Doom beauty with the morbid overload of grotesque imagery that graces this band's words? In the end, there is no reconciliation possible. Like the art of Picabia or the noise constructs of Stockhausen, one must simply experience this band and recognize that they forged their own way and then bulldozed the results to obliteration so that nobody could ever follow their demented path. Certainly I've never heard another band anything like this.

This one has everything the Doom aficionado could ask for. It's slow. It's heavy. It's plodding. It's melodic. And it's filled with inventive surprises. Check out the Jimi Hendrix throwback guitar hammer-ons after the second verse of "(I Am) Enamored of Dead Bodies." Those few seconds alone make this band a worthwhile discovery. The opening riff to "Chewing Female Genital Parts" belongs in the pantheon of great metal intros. That song, one of the album's finest, is a sludge-besmirched bent-string monster of Sabbath worship that begs the question, "What hath Iommi wrought?" And ending the song by having the angelic female vocalist trill lines like "Smell of cooked, simmered flesh/Serving her for dessert, garnished with bacon" ... well, what can one even say?

Possibly the most disturbing bit on the album occurs during the song "Tender Flesh ... On The Bier," when the female vocalist (who is not named on this release as far as I could tell) sings "Provided with surgical instruments/Exquisite supper of excrements" in a bizarre, warbling vocal style sounding for all the world like a demented Greek chorus.

The one riff that will capture the awe and amazement of fans from Sabbath to Winter occurs in the song, "Knee-Deep In Blood I Wade." Only four lines of lyrics embellish this swirling miasma of down-tuned six-string wonderment. It's essentially an instrumental that allows the entire band to show their stuff. And show it they do!

This album was released in 1994 but can still be found in its original incarnation if one looks hard enough. It has been re-released by Napalm Records with slightly altered cover art. Either version is highly worthwhile tracking down. If you want to hear something that is truly different, this is the release for you.