Rivers of stomach acid are pumped into waters of the San Fran-sicko Bay, the city streets are paved with bones and teeth and (thankfully) Deathcore musicians. The red clouds above relinquish a heavy shower of pus and droplets of organ matter-splatter, as the undead inhabitants of the city kneel before the Golden Gate hacksaw altar of the surgical god. The fanatical surgery fixated Death/Grind quartet Cartilage have exited the operating theatre once again to unveil their latest operative monstrosity in the form of album number three ‘Operating Altar’. Having formed in 2014, the band has laid waste to the American extreme metal landscape with their impressive musicianship and intriguing musical theatrics. This new album takes the band’s trajectory towards a conceptual realm where their hyper-bombastic excitement meets a narratively-driven spine.
The album’s first port of call is ‘Metal, Bone and Sinew’, where a brief opening stringed fanfare makes way for the technical grinding instrumental derangement. The band sounds tight and unrelenting and the drums and guitars showcase plenty of energised agility. I love the dual vocal interplay of deeper ogre-like growls and imp-like higher pitched nefarious glee. This attention-commandingly unique vocal style is a perfect implementation when considering the album’s lyrical focus. ‘S.C.D. (Sudden Cardiac Death)’, resumes the lessons in clinically perverted operative procedures where the morbid storytelling reminds me of the classic Mortal Decay track ‘My Mind Bleeds Tragedies’. The song sees Cartilage moving through a glutinous buffet of grindy and thrashing riffage. It’s hard not to find yourself grinning whilst experiencing the band’s utterly demented creative energy here.
The wonderfully titled ‘A Lymphatic Labyrinth of Roiling Rot’ features passages that are so chaotically hasty it feels as if you are about to be violently flung from the band’s audible rollercoaster. The song is yet another joy-inducing scatterbrained cut of unpredictable brilliance. An aspect of the record that I particularly admire is the quality of guitar riffing. The triplet chug interspersed with descending trill-note run sections on ‘Anatomical Incantations’ are very well composed indeed. The title track, appearing towards the back end of the album, is one of the record’s more blatantly catchy songs and it features another gamut of utterly infectious riffing. Adam Houmam’s detailed percussion on the song (as on the rest of the record) is frantic, relentless and explosive. The closing track ‘Stitch by Stitch’ begins with a grandiose and haunting organ section before the band grows in volume to retake the centre stage. Not only is this song one of the most instrumentally hefty on the entire record, but it features a well composed extended guitar solo that is complemented masterfully by the backing instrumental. The track implements these indulgences but keeps things concise enough to close out the album without outstaying its welcome at all.
At thirty-three minutes, Operating Altar is a shorter affair where every second is jam-packed with a ridiculous number of great ideas. Whilst the previous two Cartilage albums have offered their own streaks of creative quality, to listen to this new album is to be force-fed an encyclopaedia of Carcass and Exhumed-esque musical references all in the space of half an hour. The conceptual execution of the record reminds me of the thematic narrative brilliance displayed by the iconic Thrash Metal outfit Vektor. All things considered, Operating Altar is an excellent record that attests to the quality of these musicians and I recommend the album to every last fan of Death Metal. You will not be disappointed!
