Waking The Cadaver – Beyond Cops. Beyond God

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For the longest time, Waking The Cadaver has been just one big joke to the metal community. It seemed that all their music was just breakdowns and pig squeals. With Beyond Cops. Beyond God, they redeem themselves a bit. The band has always been unfairly tagged with being deathcore, but their sound is much closer to brutal death metal, like Devourment or Suffocation. The longest track on the album, Sadistic Tortures, sounds like it could be taken from any great ’80s death metal band in the 2010s. The biggest downfall for Waking The Cadaver, however, is their refusal to evolve. The lack of song-length breakdowns and pig squeals took away anything that made them a joke, but therefore took away anything that made them stand out. Unless they drastically change up their sound in the years to come, they’ll always just sound like a poor Whitechapel clone. The track Boss Status, for instance, sounds like a Whitechapel cover. The other problem with this album (aside from the grammatically incorrect title) is that very few of the songs are memorable. Each song follows the deathcore formula of starting out fast, slowing to a crawl with a breakdown, and ending on a boring note. It’s rare that I say this about a death metal band, but if they incorporated more groove into their sound, maybe taking a note from Deicide, it’d help them become a lot more fun to listen to. Terminate With Extreme Prejudice is a great reminder of how fun this music can sound. There’s enough in Beyond Cops. Beyond God to intrigue diehard fans of deathcore and brutal death metal, but everyone will want to stay away. The way things are going, this band won’t be relevant in a few years.

Written by Jackson May
More: 2010, Albums, Death Metal, Quick.Play Reviews, Waking The Cadaver