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CARDIAC ARREST
A Parallel Dimension Of Despair

Memento Mori (2018)
Rating: 8/10

Having formed in 1997, Chicago death metalheads Cardiac Arrest have made quite a career out of plumbing the deaths of vintage death metal madness to ply their trade. A Parallel Dimension Of Despair is the sixth full-length offering from this bunch who had quite a prolific period from 2004, and their standards have yet to slip. So it’s no real shock then that this 11-song affair is a solid slab of heavy death expression.

Although not quite musty enough to sound like something from the golden age of the era from the 80s into the early 90s, A Parallel Dimension Of Despair is a sturdy record of varying pace which leads the listener into various stages of a genre that keeps on coughing up exciting new albums.

After just a few spins I’m mostly drawn to this platter by Adam Scott’s vocal flair. Here’s a guy who can growl, grunt and yowl with the best of them, taking influence from the likes of Autopsy while the band in general combines a grinding dose of, say, Morbid Angel with the likes of Carcass. The overall result is an earthy, yet at times groove-based slab of catchy, diseased death tumult built upon a sturdy foundation of gnarly, contagious riffery and some excellent, although for me all too sparse leads which puncture the thick, dense wall of drudgery.

But pace is never sacrificed either, with lumps such as ‘Unforgiving…Unrelenting’ providing a killer melody alongside pus-filled speed patterns, whereas a song such as ‘Become The Pain’ provides an unhealthy gallop as Nick Gallichio hammers his blood-soaked skins. Elsewhere, tracks such as ‘When The Teeth Sink In’ showcase the talents of Dave Holland’s bass; those fetid trundles acting as a well-soiled backbone for the gruesome chords to toy with.

I still think there’s room for the band to become dirtier to accompany the vocal slurs and burps, but it’s still heavy, grinding death metal finely suited to that 1993-1997 era, especially as those slower passages kick in and supply those nifty, catchy avenues. I guess that’s where the Carcass similarities emerge. The blistering ‘Drudge Demon’ takes on a rather formulaic route as a fast, hammering composition of barking orders and chaotic percussion, while ‘It Takes Form’ gushes with thrashing menace; the band unrelenting with this nasty cut of speed and aggression.

But for me, the best tracks are saved for the end. The deep, dark, brooding trudge of ‘This Dark Domain’ really shakes things up as a slow motion, gurgling traipse featuring some mesmerising chords and bony percussion. Meanwhile, closer ‘Voices From The Tomb’ is an eight-minute master class in melodic death metal; from its opening melancholic chords to that slow, tense build up and then, just before the two-minute mark, the posse speeds up, battering the ears with a scalding death metal frenzy.

Sandwiched in-between my two favourites, is the short stab of ‘Professional Victim’; another racy, hurtling manifestation bringing to mind the likes of Benediction. And that’s what I really like about this chunk of death metal; Cardiac Arrest’s cleverness to fuse together varying styles within the death metal genre. At one moment they’re spewing out obvious nods to the classic Floridian scene, the next paying homage to the European masters with hints of Grave. And with so many classy ingredients thrown into the mix, Cardiac Arrest could never go wrong.

Neil Arnold

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