Embalmer – There Was Blood Everywhere (Hells Headbangers)

Sunday, 3rd August 2014
Rating: 7/10

Talk about a trip down memory lane. Reminiscing of having to go to a store and special order this when it was originally released as a teenager (back before the Internet was such a destination), your thoughts on There Was Blood Everywhere may not be quite so admirable. Like the more commonly found Relapse-issued cd version, this does contain the 1993 Rotten Remains demo, ratcheting up the runtime to about 25 minutes. Looking at this in view of it’s release date, it was some pretty brutal stuff. Nowadays, well it’s brutal still, but maybe not for all the same reasons.

There is no question that There Was Blood Everywhere is/was some brutal stuff. The transitions from excessive blasting to slow, plodding riffs can occasionally be quite jarring in tone. None of this is helped by the overly fuzzed guitar tone which leaves much of the faster stuff as mostly just noise. Then there’s the vocals, which consist of the usual gutteral roars and sickening gurgles but when things switch to the high end, they are extremely forward in the mix, sometimes giving them a bit of a shrill, hokey sound that can be sometimes oft-putting if you aren’t in the mood for it (see “The Necro-Filing Cabinet”). However, for all its oddities and quirks, there is a visceral and destructive force that follows this album. The dark, murky tone that infiltrates the songs, especially before they start blasting full-tilt (“Blood Sucking Freaks”) is enough to still give it a thumbs up today, and the way it complements the creepy, blood soaked artwork is yet another strong point.

There are circles that consider this one a bit of a cult classic, and if you are among them, this re-issue is especially for you. Even for fans wondering what early Carcass may have been like if they decided to drop the medical kit and pick up a cleaver and just go completely over the top, There Was Blood Everywhere should still hit the spot, even after all these years.

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