Formed in 2020, these Japanese Carcass-worshippers have been really prolific, with this second album, ‘Flourishing Extremities On Unspoiled Mental Grounds’, being their twelfth release already. On previous recordings, Pharmacist already proved to be able to crank the ghost of both Carcass’ more gory early recordings and their later Death Metal period into one solid piece of Grinding Death Metal. With this latest offering, Pharmacist just continues to walk that path.
With a slightly higher pace and more emphasis on Death Metal, they are clearly leaning a bit more towards the ‘Necroticism: Descanting The Insalubrious’ and ‘Heartwork’ albums of the Carcass territories. They are also incorporating more guitar leads, listen to ‘Necromorph’ for instance, that even breaks down in a quirky jazzy interlude, before going back into those typical ‘Heartwork’-style riffs. With this they seem to disband the camp of the ‘Symphonies Of Sickness’-adepts, leaving that up to bands like Dead Infection and General Surgery.
On the band’s previous recording, the ‘Carnal Pollution’ EP the band had struck a remarkably refreshing balance between both the Gore Grind and the Death Metal side of Carcass. It strongly bore the ambience of both and smoothly melted it together. That rather unique blend seems to have been lost on this subsequent album, making it sound a little tamer and it might sound a bit contradictory, but despite all the well-done guitar freaky, it even sounds a little more predictable.
In spite of a few remarks, Pharmacist is still one of the better Carcass-devotees and of this latest putridum opus they do sound like some sort of a missing link between ‘Necroticism’ and ‘Heartwork’. With a kind of instrument mastery not unlike the original British.
