When British extreme metal band Cancer burst onto the scene like a putrid sore, their arrival was a welcome sight. Releasing their debut album in 1990 when grunge was in its ascendency, the band added some much needed heaviness into the lives of those who favoured the hard stuff. An uncompromising career found the band releasing four well-received albums before folding in 1996. Still led by irrepressible vocalist/guitarist John Walker, the band are very much back in action and, 35 years on from their incendiary debut album are about to assault our eardrums once again with their seventh long player Inverted World.
Proving that the band haven’t lost their knack for writing a killer riff, ‘Enter The Gates’ starts with one that has been dredged from the very depths of Hades and it sets a dangerous precedent for the coming ten tracks. Nor has Walker’s voice softened with age, if anything it is more rough hewn and gravelly (which is exactly how a death metal vocalist should sound). It has that serial-killer-on-the-rampage vibe which is perfect for the accompanying chainsaw riffs and blunt trauma drums. In short, it has all the key ingredients that make a Cancer album and walks a fine line between a band pleasing their fans and satisfying their own creative impulses and that makes Inverted World no mere exercise in nostalgia. Songs such as ‘Until They Died’ and ‘Test Site’ smoke like fresh kill and are delivered with an energy that places the band right in the here and now.
Inverted World has been furnished with a full, bombastic production and as such it gets right in the listener’s face; this isn’t a shrinking violet hiding in the corner, rather it is bold and brash and throws its (considerable) weight around. While there are plenty of air guitar inducing moments (check out the duelling axes on ‘Covert Operations’, often this album derives its power from the riff and the overarching aesthetic of this album is of an uncontainable, unstoppable force. However, even when the band slow down and add some acoustic guitars to introduce ‘Jesus For Eugenics’ they are just as powerful (if not more so) and the brand of death is so heavy, it could easily crush a man.
As just one glance at the cover should tell you, Cancer have lost none of their desire to shock and final track ‘Corrosive’ finds them detailing the gruesome crimes of John Haigh (the Acid Bath Murderer) in typically acidic fashion. It all makes for a welcome return and suggests that the next 35 years shall be just as brutal.
- Inverted World is released via Peaceville Records on 18th April 2025 (available here).
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Track List:
- Enter The Gates
- Until They Died
- Inverted World
- 39 Bodies
- Test Site
- Amputate
- When Killing Isn’t Murder
- Covert Operations
- Jesus For Eugenics
- Corrosive
