San Francisco, California’s Cartilage gore/death/grind act is back with their third full-length album, Operating Altar. Tales from the Entrails: A Necrology was a nifty EP they released that I reviewed last year, and now they drop this 10-song, 33-minute album of revolting, brutal music. “Metal, Bone, and Sinew” starts after a short intro and a little noodly guitar work coming into the mix, then the blast, and I am at home with Cartilage. The band is still intact, which is a huge plus.
Their mix of Exhumed/Carcass is ever-present. Mark Wallace’s varying vocal tones — the gutturals and raspier vocals — are piped in excellently, as is the production of layering the vocals to make it appear there are two vocalists. At times, Deicide comes to mind with this effect. The guitar solo, hovering over the blast beat, is exceptional, and the grind blast is terrific. Adam Houmam continues to excel in his craft with his monstrous blasts. This song features some very cool drum parts, and the guitars of Mike Flory and his wife Ria Flory are brutal. Ria plays bass/guitars in the killer Emasculator band, by the way. This is a brutal opening number.
“The Autopsy: A Surgical Sonata” is a song title you would expect on a Carcass album, but Cartilage beat them to the punch. Melodic guitars with some of the harmonies are interwoven into brutal riffage over the blasts. The dizzying array of vocal tones and the layering is some of the best I have heard in a bit. Some of the monstrous blasts, especially at the two-minute timestamp, are going to rip your limbs apart in a nanosecond. The song slows down and gallops at a terrific headbanging pace. Once the blast takes over, you had better stop headbanging or else you might headbang that head of yours right off your pathetic shoulders.
“A Lymphatic Labyrinth of Roiling Rot” has an opening guitar riff that is so killer, then right into the Holy Shit blasting madness. This moment is pretty vicious, and with the vocals, I am wondering if another member of the band, during a concert, takes over maybe one of the tones. Because, with the layering effects, the vocalist is either going to have to stick to one tone and another member pipes in the other tone in order to replicate the album moments, or they just forgo the different tones. Hopefully one of the band members helps out with the other tone, since it sounds killer, just like how Dying Fetus and Exhumed have been pulling this off, brutally, for decades. This song moves and grooves, and the double bass drums sound great with one of the best snare drum sounds all year. This song is fun, brutal, and has some pit action moments here and there.
The rest of the songs all follow this formula, with the title track another strong standout, with the Carcass-inspired opening moments and galloping pacing taking over. The song slows down to a mid-paced, bludgeoning crawl and then double-pounding madness. The variety of vocal tones and tempo shifts will keep you on your toes and off your toes as well.
Operating Altar is yet another brutal release from Cartilage, who keeps upping their game. So much so that this band is one of the strongest in their genre class. Songs are memorable and catchy, and death/goregrind is not always something easy to pull off. There is enough harmony on this album to keep some of the technical fans happy, and so much putrid filth to keep us goregrind and death metal fans happy like a clam. Get this dirty, filthy, brutal album now!
