originally written by Chris McDonald
Waking The Cadaver made quite an entrance with their infamous 2007 debut, Perverse Recollections of a Necromangler, a standard modern-day deathcore album rife with tongue-in-cheek brutality but sorely lacking in anything actually interesting or musically noteworthy. In similar fashion to fellow deathcore stars Job For A Cowboy (who achieved popularity through similar circumstances), the follow up to the unexpected success of their debut sees Waking The Cadaver attempt to focus and streamline their sound in an assumed attempt at attaining a more legitimate status in the underground. And much like Job For A Cowboy, the results are underwhelming at best.
But very much unlike Job For A Cowboy, Waking The Cadaver’s most recent effort feels more like a shameless attempt to capitalize on current deathcore trends rather than a misguided attempt at true-metal acceptance. The unbearably titled Beyond Cops. Beyond God (what the hell is up with that single period?) is nothing more than another tried-and-true exercise in deathcore stereotypes; burly macho-man vocals, an over-focus on drum technicality, and song structures that alternate randomly between interchangeable breakdowns/chugs and sterile blast segments. The band can sound fairly menacing when they’re roaring along with the expected Suffocation-derived slug-riffs, and some of the faster moments hit pretty hard, but overall the songs are deflated and aimless compared to deathcore’s more innovative projects. There’s gallons of brutal-sounding stuff here, but it feels more like the band wrote music strictly based around the expected standards for the deathcore genre rather than anything meant to stand creatively on its own.
Beyond the somewhat monotonous churn of the core songwriting, Waking The Cadaver further hurt themselves with the album’s presentation. The drum-heavy production ironically spotlights occasional mistakes and time-keeping slip-ups in the percussion, as well as obscures the guitars anytime things slow for a breakdown, and the out-of-place gravity blasts that occasionally surface further confuse and obstruct the flow of music and seemingly exist solely to impress the listener. But the grating tone of most of the vocals, ranging from standard burly growls to animalistic grunts and squeals, is what really bogs these tunes down. Not only are they too prominent and overbearing in the mix, but the reasonably intelligible delivery of the vox serves to emphasize the relentless stupidity of the lyrics, which may very well be the most dunderheaded tripe I’ve ever seen penned in a metal album (and there’s plenty of competition).
Even without the irritating extraneous problems, Beyond Cops. Beyond God would still be an average release at a time when a stagnating deathcore scene needs excellence to remain worthwhile. When you consider that this band’s only distinctive elements are their comic-book themes and appalling lyrics, it becomes clear that Waking The Cadaver really doesn’t have anything to offer even the most rabid of deathcore fans. Beyond Cops. Beyond God can be entertaining in a guilty pleasure sort of way, but there’s already plenty of meat-and-potatoes deathcore albums out there to satisfy those kinds of cravings, and they come without the annoying sense of self-parody and scene pandering that Waking The Cadaver peddles. I’m well aware that this band doesn’t take themselves too seriously and are probably amazed that they’ve even gotten this far, but honestly, does the musicians being in on their own joke do anything to legitimize their music when its this cheesy in its approach and shallow in its basic substance? I think not.
