Rating: 7.9

Country: USA

Release Date: 2005

Record Label: Century Media

Track list:
1. Goreverture
2. Mondo Medicale
3. Gutless
4. Theatre of Operations
5. Preservation of Death
6. Wrought In Hell
7. Resurrectionists
8. Critical Condition
9. The Dead Shall Death Remain
10. Medical Waste
11. Dead Alive
12. Coda Morte

Total playing time 42:07

Band Website: Impaled

Impaled - Death After Life

Jason Kocol - E.M.T. (Emergency Metal Technician)
Sean McGrath - M.D. (Medical Deviant)
Ross Sewage - R.N. (Registered Nut)
Raul Varela - D.D.S (Doctor of Dissolute Science)

Many of you might remember Impaled‘s preceding album that was influenced by the accessible latter works of Carcass, which I would ungrudgingly liken to sweetened beer. While Mondo Medicale wasn't a bad album at all, Impaled‘s subsequent signing to Century Media had drastically raised the odds of them going after the candy and biting the dust. But with Death After Life, Impaled have shocked everyone and their cynical grannies to a painful cackling death by proving that they have no intention of selling out; not yet anyway. Yes my illegitimate brothers, the melody has indeed been toned down and that bodes very well for us macho men and our future boys.

In order to resuscitate this clichéd style of music, Impaled have dramatised it by injecting a convincing horror theme into authentic Carcass tunes. Selective medium-length intros are used with restraint to achieve that effect and also the introduction of a host of additional instruments such as keyboards, violins, viola and cello to highlight the Necroticism/Symphonies of Sickness inspired music on Death After Life. The violin in particular, though sparingly used, makes the sickness level shoot up several notches and comes dangerously close to causing an epidemic. Truly, not many bands have been able to give a convincing larger than life, demented-pathologist-in-a-dark -basement feel to this type of music.

The riffs feel like a surgeon's serrated hacksaw cutting through different parts of your body right down to the marrow. Thankfully far from self-indulgent, they are played with enough mad passion and enthusiasm to warrant attention. The songs are sickeningly composed and there exists just about a perceptible difference between each of them, though more variation in the form of sprightly hooks or catchy beats as in Mondo Medicale or their split with Haemorrhage would have helped. Performed with more than a just touch of nastiness, they are augmented by the since festered vocals of Sean that sound as if they are coming from the corpse of Jeff Walker resurrected by the spirit of someone's unhappy grandma. His palpable excitement is suitably contained by the thick, viscid, almost ear-numbing music to which you slosh vigorously in your bedroom. It flows at a cranky pace, relying more on momentum than a deliberate effort to proceed. Although the overall melody is kept under check, sweet melodic leads surface from the glutinous music from time to time and even the toughest son of a bum would like that as it balances the heaviness. The production is delightful if a bit too murky; crude and unstable, when played too fast or loudly, one half-expects the music to shut down due to the power surge.

I really didn't think I would end up saying this – Death After Life is a damn fine album, Impaled‘s best full-length release so far. In the balance of heaviness and melody, the former wins by a good margin, and for the sake of mankind I hope they keep it that way for their next album as well while striving to improve on their quality of riffs and variations. The music may not be perfect, but one thing is certain: Carcass worship was never done on such an epic, nearly cinematic scale.

September 17th, 2007