One From The Grave: Luck of the Corpse
May 29 2009 at 03:44:23 AM  Re-up the tombstones. Five years before heads reading Metal Maniacs thumb-tacked full page ads of Fearless Undead Machines to the wall, Arlington VA’s Deceased unleashed their debut album, one of the earliest releases by Relapse records, and as far away from the sound of their well-regarded opus as Show No Mercy is to Reign in Blood. Yet in much the same way Luck of the Corpse kicked up enough unhallowed earth to make room for greater ideas to come. Vocalist / drummer Kingsley Fowley, 13 years behind the stroke that would leave him (still performing) with only 1 ½ working lungs, leads the crew on a midnight joyride through the graveyard of mankind. The ardor of youth laid bare - mavericks aching to get their face on an LP cover, name in the liners - and while loudness cost money, playing it faster still meant pussy for days. Having fun havin’ a band . Inexperience indulging in fantasy at that age perhaps not much different from your own; executed far short of the mark of “perfection” as guitars metallic grit and rough harmonic pawing point to kids wantin to be King and Hanneman, sounding closer to that pair dreaming of Shermann and Denner slummin with a mini 12” amp. Some say mediocre, generic. But it wasn’t straight Thrash or Death metal either. Not Deicide, anyway. Not Morbid Angel or Obituary. Not Possessed. No copycat shit. There was more color too it, not timid, but playful, pushed to extremes in waves of dive bombs, slides, pick scrapes and touch harmonics accenting campy jitters and creeps, those Fabio Frizzi-like arpeggios poked out with the saddest “clean” tone that ever came out of a professional studio. The kind of performance that suggests they only just started playing months, rather than years, before recording. Catchy, imaginative and yes, sloppy. Can you actually listen to it? Why the fuck not?! No matter its technical flaws, Corpse’s economy and abundant energy still sustains listening today. Opener “Fading Survival” sets the tone for much of what follows, abruptly trudging in and gaining speed with a series of start-stop variations on the hopeless opening riff before giving way to“The Cemetery’s Full,” a simple thrasher with a menacing introduction. With “Experimenting with Failure,” however, Deceased starts running full tilt. King’s kit as fists pounding the shit out of locked chamber doors. When guitarists Mark Adams and Dough Souther start chuffing, the vox sound appropriately as if shouted from the roof of a moving train. Fowley’s manic tales of atomic reanimation and diseased minds are not yet fitted with an actual “concept,” and instead put forth as rabid warnings, ghost stories told while the forests are burning, precariously preaching the end: All their lives they believed the word And all their lives they believed in trust And all their lives they believed in truth But in death they will see the light Even barked, the words can’t come fast enough, starting on the beat and then blurring into one unbroken string of URGH, not a breath passing between whole words, peaking with “Decrepit Coma’s” furious quadruple phrasing of NevertoawakeNevertoawakeNevertoawakeNevertoawake AGAIN! The album’s second half opens up with longer, stranger tracks like the “Shrieks from the Hearse,” a short score in itself, followed by the more melodic “Psychedelic Warriors” and “Birth By Radiation” ending the album properly with OTT explosive speed after a prolonged, lead-footed intro. Not hard to see how this could have easily become another one-shot record, bashed out live for a spell and then forgotten as the members drifted apart over time. But the core held together even as original guitarist Souther was replaced by Mike Smith before the discs even returned from the plant. The resulting 11 tracks lifting the torch of ferocious riff wizardry left in the dirt by Death just as Thrash slowly petered out at the close of the decade. Amateur, yes - at times achingly flat - but often just plain reckless and wild. And for all the consequences of the cliché one is made to weep over such an antique quality. [Todd DePalma] Deceased
Luck of the Corpse 1992 Relapse *Correction: Mike Smith replaced Doug Souther on guitar before the album went to plant.
type: reviews
keywords:
death metal,
speed metal,
one from the grave,
speed,
lhp026,
chainsaw,
king,
haunted cerebellum,
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the graveyard shift is al lwe could afford.
fast, faster, fasterrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!, all it was about then. it was our foundation and we learned from our mistakes as well as our triumphs.
still enjoy the songs, wish the l.p wasn't so rushed and doug souther's falling out with the band wasn't upon us while recording it all.
but it is what it is! we did it and keep on doing it. new lp out soon. cheers and saleutes to all!
thanks a million for the words
king
King? If that's really you... I love your voice. If that's not really you, I love his voice...
(probably not the hippest records to namedrop on LHP, but fuck it. falses' leave the hall...)
False assumption for the first record, but that's why I worded it that way. Seventh Son is the one that gets tossed into "most underrated Maiden" polls while every other Deceased record gets far too little love/press etc.