Liverpool's Carcass first began churning out its unique brand of psychopathological gore in 1985, when guitarist Bill Steer joined forces with drummer Ken Owen to form the nucleus of this UK-based quartet. By the time Steer and Owen were joined by bassist/vocalist Jeff Walker in 1987, they had become a far more formidable, serious unit, eventually landing a deal with the trend-setting Earache Records. The group's debut LP for the label, 1988's Reek Of Putrefaction, featured a stomach-turning, full-color collage of distressed body parts for a cover sleeve, but this didn't stop it from making it all the way to #6 on the UK Indie LP chart, establishing Carcass as one of the pioneers of the grindcore genre. 1989 saw the UK release of Carcass' second LP, Symphonies Of Sickness, which boasted radically improved production values and a quantum compositional leap. This album also marked the beginning of the band's career in earnest, as Steer gave up his part-time gig with Napalm Death upon the completion of Napalm's Japanese tour. Since Symphonies Of Sickness was issued overseas, the band has completed a full Earache package tour (also featuring Napalm Death, Morbid Angel and Bolt Thrower), and has done a full-blown US tour in support of Death even before S.O.S. was made available domestically. Carcass (completed by guitarist Mike Amott) is presently working on its third album (second for Combat/Earache), which should be recorded this summer and released in late 1991.
