Beyond Cops. Beyond God.

Waking The Cadaver. Three of the most hated words within the metal community. I can understand the abuse this band has had from the metal scene as their first album was flawed in many ways, but the past is the past and on this album you can tell they have put more effort into songwriting and production. It is plausible that their attempts to improve is due to the sheer amount of hate their previous releases have had and I give the band credit for even continuing, let alone releasing a second album.

Starting with "Beyond Cops" the assault begins and immediately the listener can hear the improvements that have been made. The production is better, the vocals have changed, the guitars seem more focused, and the drummer has improved hugely. The production here as stated above is much better. Their debut album had a muddy overall sound with poor mixing
(the vocals and drums being the main problems). The vocalist here has dropped most of the "Bree Bree SHREDDED WHEAT"-style inhales for a low guttural grunt sounding like a mixture of Travis Ryan and John Gallagher's grunts combined. However, the vocal style from the first album has not completely disappeared as the "wet" sounding inhales and pig squeals are still used in moderation. This is definite improvement as the vocal patterns used are more defined and powerful, in my opinion.

The guitarists have actually attempted to write non-breakdown-based songs on this album. The previous album would be just endless breakdowns , one leading into another (I do, however, love Cephalotripsy's similar style of songwriting). This approach seems to have been forgotten completely. Most of the guitar work here changes between fast tremolo and mid-tempo riffs, however the breakdowns ("slams", if you will) are still here, but there are riffs leading up to them and after them. This makes the "slams" more effective overall because the listener is actually treated to a build up to these sections.

The drumming on this album is much better from the production and performance point of view. Firstly, the drums have a nice clean tone and the drumming is actually in time here, unlike on their previous album. The drummer keeps the band going with some interesting playing, nothing incredibly groundbreaking, but nothing to really complain about. I was, however, impressed with this guy's gravity blasting that can be heard occasionally here. The bassist is yet again completely inaudible; it seriously sounds like there is no bass here, so I cannot comment on his performance, but he must be fairly solid if he can follow the guitar work (which, I assume, he is doing as you literally never hear any bass on this album).

That brings me to the flaws with this album. As I just stated, the bass is completely silent and this band/album would be greatly improved in my opinion if there was a nice clunky-sounding bass YOU COULD HEAR underneath the guitars. A further problem is with the songwriting; it is fairly unmemorable and upon listening to this album songs can merge together into one monolithic 28 minute assault. However, there ARE standout tracks here, being "Sadistic Tortures", "Suffering Upon Revenge", and "Terminate With Extreme Prejudice". These are all solid tracks, especially "Sadistic Tortures" which contains some very memorable guitar work and vocal patterns. "Sadistic Tortures" is also the longest track on the album, which is notable because in my opinion it can be hard to create a brutal death metal track this long whilst making the track interesting.

An issue with this album is also the lyrics. Now, I respect that they use less of the boring gore-soaked lyrics that were throughout their first album, as talking about killing a schoolgirl and fucking her in every orifice gets incredibly boring incredibly fast. However, the lyrics here are mostly mindless "tough guy" shit that seem to have been written very quickly. Also what is with the title? "Beyond Cops. Beyond God" is one of the most meaningless titles I have ever heard to go along with one of the most unimaginative album covers I have ever seen.

Overall, Waking The Cadaver deserve credit for their improvements, but I feel if they work on their songwriting and MAKE THE BASS AUDIBLE and create more interesting lyrics, they will have some serious potential in the future. Keep trying, guys.

Standouts: "Sadistic Tortures", "Suffering Upon Revenge", and "Terminate With Extreme Prejudice".

7/10.