Ok, I understand the gimmick here, but why? We all love Carcass but if the shtick is to imitate them, and it no doubt is, The County Medical Examiners have failed on an embarrassingly unworthy level. Marketed as an homage to Symphonies Of Sickness, Olidous Operettas is about as interesting as trimming your toenails. The songs are dull and uninspiring and the drumming, fuck almighty, is messier than a ruptured femoral artery. Every Carcassism is tastelessly xeroxed in the blandest, most repetitive way. These assholes almost sent me to the slab out of sheer boredom. The sad part is that it is possible to bite successfully, yet somehow, the CMEs have chewed only from the rotten, maggot-slathered rump of the band they emulate.

It’s rumored that one of the Examiners is a former member of Exhumed, but what separates Exhumed, or for that matter Impaled and Haemorrhage, from the CMEs is that the former bands have all managed to excrete a few good tracks while riding the Carcass caboose over the years. While Relapse put way more into this than it deserves, they did make the packaging pretty fun. The scratch n’ sniff corpse-scented CD is a classy touch, and the booklet-- filled with medical tidbits and clever diagrams-- is at least momentarily amusing. If the album’s purpose was to render the listener unfulfilled and longing for Carcass then it succeeds. On its own it remains a half-assed tribute, a botched cranial trephination, and a waste of my fucking time.

If anything, this is only further proof that contemporary death metallers have simply run out of ideas. Throwbacks to bygone styles are the logical solution to innovative lulls not because of nostalgia, but because early shit like Carcass was so damn good. On a somewhat related note, Relapse is releasing the official Disrupt discography in a couple of months titled, Disrupted. Buy or die. Anyway, back to the CMEs. Unlike most clone bands, they can be partially forgiven because they freely admit to the impersonation i.e., their unabashed milking of Bill Steer’s cock. Still, it doesn’t excuse the fact that the CD sucks and has been soaking in spilled whiskey on my desk for three days running. Ken Owen came out of a coma for this? Shame on you Relapse.