Pharmacist – Medical Renditions Of Grinding Decomposition Review

Fast Rites: because sometimes brevity is fundamental.

Do you like Carcass?

If you answered “yes,” congratulations! You are correct! You DO like Carcass!

Is Symphonies Of Sickness your favorite Carcass album?

If you answered “yes,” congratulations! You are correct! Symphonies Of Sickness IS your favorite Carcass album. (Well, it SHOULD be, dammit.)

Like you, the Japanese goregrind duo Pharmacist also enjoys Carcass, and they also really enjoy Symphonies Of Sickness. From the rotten fuzzy tones and the relentlessly slicing riffs to the combination of inhuman gurgling and biting snarl — and of course, there’s that special ew-that’s-nazzzzty album art — Pharmacist has fully embraced the sense of putridity that characterized that early landmark record. They’re far from the first to do so, of course, but they do it with such stomach-churning pizzazz that it’s impossible to resist. Scrape away the purulent guitar muck that is positively dripping from those downtuned strings, and these riffs are catchy-as-hell death/grinders; unscramble Pharmacist’s vocals, and he’s probably singing a sweet love song… about vivisection and maggots, but who are we to judge? Love comes in all forms…

All joking aside, when there’s as much gleefully gory greatness as there undeniably is in the likes of “Corporal Colophony Nectar” and “Innards Saponification In Moderate Conditions,” why would you bother scraping away even a single drop of that sweet sweet pustulent discharge? (A word of caution, though, friend: It’s very important that you saponificate in moderate conditions only. Otherwise… well, that’s how people get hurt.)

If vintage blood-spattered gurgle-grind is what you’re lacking, Pharmacist has the cure for what ails ya… Get sick.

Release date: August 14, 2020
CD: Bizarre Leprous / Cassette: Acid Redux Productions

Posted by Andrew Edmunds

Last Rites Co-Owner; Senior Editor; born in the cemetery, under the sign of the MOOOOOOON...

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