Cadaver – Hyms of Misanthropy

vote
7.5

• Band:
  Cadaver
• Duration: 00:42:43
• Available from: 25/04/2025
• Label:

• Listenable Records

Streaming not yet available

What happens when a band recovers songs left in limbo for over thirty years? In the case of the cadaver, the result is “Hyms of Misanthropy”, an album that brings to light their raw, technical and angular side.
We are in front of a small surprise for lovers of death metal in the early nineties. We do not know how much the genesis of “Hyms …” has been fictionalized to make it more inviting in the promotional seat, but it seems that the basis of this material dates back to 1991, therefore to the period between the first and the second album of the group, in which the Norwegians recorded different demos then remained unused. In 2024, the leader Anders Oden re -examined these tapes, then highly putting himself at work to complete what in all respects is a unpublished album left in the shade for decades.
Beyond the nature of the narrative, it is quite evident how the character of the sound of this new work is actually in line with the first works of the band, which today has even gathered in a line-up close to the original one-Anders Odden on voice and guitar, Ole Bjerkebakke on drums and voice, Eilert Solstad on bass-so as to make full justice to these songs partially written at the time.
Listening to the album, we are in fact in front of a sghembo metal and refined death metal, which seems to be aligned, at least at times, with that then included in the classic “… in Pains” of 1992. We then return to a sound that can also be described as a hybrid of Death, Atheist and Voivod, with more, to peek every now and then, the surreal one vena avantgarde ( that only veterans of the Norwegian panorama as those in question know how to devise.
A very organic and decidedly apt production for the proposed sound acts as a frame of a lot of songs in which all the cardinal elements of the most loved cadavers are reviewed – that is, those of the distant beginnings – with that syncopated pace to punctually suggest changes of scenario and register, for a compelling listening that leaves satisfied both when the proposal becomes poisonous and linear, vaguely following the cavalcas of one “Human”, both when the techno/prog matrix becomes more conspicuous and enterprising, giving rhythmic screws and suspension phases that open to unpredictable solutions, where the guitar works in a more subtle but no less sharp way.
The main merit of “Hyms of Misanthropy” is therefore in being able to balance the spontaneous attitude of the first Death Metal with a writing more attentive to details, all supported by a high quality execution. On this occasion, Oden and his companions show off a harmony that goes beyond simple nostalgia, managing to express a tangible transport along the whole tracklist, as if the trio had made a journey within a time machine that does not just replicate, but which manages to amplify the spirit of the time.
In general, we are obviously not in front of a record capable of dirtying “… in Pains” – the inspiration and the innovative impact of that album today are not so simply replicable – however this operation of recovery of material apparently dating back to 1991 translates into an interesting stroke for a band that, from its latest reunion of 2010, had a little struggled to gear completely. With pieces such as “Maltreated Mind Makes man manic”, “Sunset At Dawn” or “from the Past”, the Cadaver remitted the cards, offer a new perspective on their work and find expressive clarity, relaunching a career in the most unexpected way.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=umjhlfciw-a