Review Summary: The single worst metal album ever released. And I use the words "metal" and "album" as lightly as one possibly can.
Ever since the dawn of MySpace, a new breed of modern metal has come unto us: metalcore and deathcore. For the vast majority of bands in these two genres, the musical focus is on how many breakdowns one can fit into a song (I.E. Most of Emmure's discography is about 98% breakdowns) and how "brutal" one can be over creating structured, varied, original music. Some bands in these two genres have broken those barriers and created legitimately enjoyable music, such as Killswitch Engage, As I Lay Dying, Job for a Cowboy, and Whitechapel. Waking The Cadaver is not one of those bands. Waking The Cadaver (I shall now abbreviate their name with WTC, because much like 9/11 this band is a complete and utter tragedy), the newest scene kid hipster bree bree deathcore band from MySpace, New Jersey, is here to do one thing: insult your intelligence and make you question why the *** you started listening to heavy metal in the first place.
Perverse Recollections of a Necromangler, released in Who-The-***-Knows-Or-Cares 2007, is notable for containing every single cliche and generic trait of the deathcore genre: standard chug chug three note breakdowns, a focus on brutality over creative songwriting, and an array of band members that play about as good as the kid downstairs with Noonan Syndrome. The thing about this album however is that WTC has managed to take all of these cliches and generic traits and amplify them by 1000. The result is a complete cluster*** of noise, sloppy instrumentation, horrible vocals, and appalling subject matter.
The first thing you'll notice about this album is the artwork. It is, admittedly, pretty good, with good artwork and obvious attention to detail. Brace yourself folks, because that's the only redeeming quality about this album. After the intro (because no deathcore album can go without some intro of noise that's supposed to "prepare" the listener for what's to come next), which is lovingly titled "Intro", we get the first array of aural madness known as "Always Unprotected". Right away, you know this isn't gonna be a pleasant experience. It's a complete ***storm of insanity, but not in the effective way that bands such as Cryptopsy use it for. This is just awful. It sounds like a pig being slaughtered into a microphone. Now take this song, play it again 9 times, and you have the rest of this album.
The actual "musicians" are complete jokes. I'll save vocalist Don Campan for later. He deserves special attention. Guitarists Jimmy Regan and Nick Palmateer use basic riffs and generic breakdowns without shame here. They are about as simple in their "skill" as a death metal influenced guitar player can get (although to be fair, the intro riff in Raped, Pillaged, and Gutted is admittedly a cool sounding riff. Probably the only time the word "interesting" will be used in a positive connotation here). Bassist Steve Vermilyea is...well, he's somewhere here. The band mixed him down to the point that he's almost 100% inaudible. As a drummer myself, I consider myself to be of decent skill in extreme metal. That being said, I am absolutely appalled at drummer Dennis Morgan's performance here. Multiple times he will lose time with the rest of the band, his playing is sloppy and all over the place, his kit sounds literally like a piece of metal being dropped on the floor, and he has created the single worst sounding drum technique ever heard: the two handed gravity blast. It sounds, quite frankly, like complete cow***. It seems like this guy doesn't know how to play anything but very ***ty blast beats and very generic breakdowns
Now for the one member of this band everyone talks about. Vocalist Don Campan seems to have been the offspring of some redneck retard who had sex with his pet pig. Campan has the following vocal styles, listed in order of how frequently he uses them: normal death growls, low pitched death gurgles, high pitched pig squeals, and finally, gurgles that, as I stated before, sound like a pig being slaughtered while a microphone recorded it all. It all comes together in a cacophony of awful, and even the most loyal brutal death metal fan will find his vocals abhorrent and crappy. I like to label bands that use this vocal style "gurgle bands". Campan's vocals most assuredly place WTC into the category of a gurgle band.
Believe it or not, this band actually has lyrics. Sure you can't understand them at all, but they're there. Doesn't mean they're good though. These are quite possibly the most violent lyrics ever used in an extreme metal setting. Once again though, that doesn't mean they're good. Campan's lyrics revolve around only one thing: relentlessly slaughtering women and maiming their bodies. If this doesn't show one person's misogyny, I don't know what does. When used correctly, gore lyrics can be a very effective way of adding to a band's music and/or image (see Cannibal Corpse and Autopsy, the two pioneers of these kinds of lyrics). When WTC uses them however, it's just another stupid cliche that WTC have managed to make even worse. And while I personally don't take offense to the actual lyrics (yes they insult my intelligence, but I too write gore lyrics as a death metal musician), I know a lot of people have and will be offended by the horrific acts described in this song, mainly women, considering that women are on the receiving end of the punishment in every song here. As a closer of the section on the lyrics, here's a selection of the graceful poetry used in the song "Pigtails Are For Face***ing":
Forced deep into the separated cranium of a crusty used up slut: my gigantic rod.
Swollen member penetrating her now empty eye sockets, and all other holes are to be filled.
Crushing and ***ing pulverized brain tissue with a still moist tongue caressing my sack.
The bitch never saw that one comin.
Waking The Cadaver have done what many bands before them have done. Only this time, they've taken what those bands have done and exemplified them to the point that unless they are a shadow parody of brutal death metal and deathcore, they have created the single worst metal album ever released. And I use the words "metal" and "album" as lightly as one possibly can. However, their 2010 release Beyond Cops, Beyond God AMAZINGLY improved over this dreck. That album is a legitimately good death metal record. The same cannot be said for Perverse Recollections of a Necromangler. It is the biggest pile of animal feces ever released on the metal world. And that includes everything ever released by Blackguard.
