CANCER – Inverted World (Album Review)

The world turns upside down.

Though often overshadowed by fellow British death metal titans Bolt Thrower and Benediction, Telford’s own Cancer were a force to be reckoned with during the early 90s heyday of the subgenre.

Following a well conceived debut as a power trio after the spirit of American death metal standards like Death and Master dubbed To The Gory End, featuring some guest vocal work from none other than Obituary’s John Tardy to boot, this fold would find themselves unleashing a formidable sophomore outing in 1991’s Death Shall Rise with none other than the mighty James Murphy on lead guitar and Scott Burns in the producer’s chair.

After a rather schizophrenic foray into mid-90s groove metal with Black Faith and an underwhelming mid-2000s comeback, it seemed that these masters of the morbid had reached their journey’s end. But fate and a renewed interest in the old school death metal sound in the mid-2010s saw the original early 90s trio reunited to unleash a formidable beast in 2018’s Shadow Gripped, proving that the old ways were still strong in the British Isles.

Despite the 2022 departure of longtime bandmates Ian Buchanan and Carl Stokes, leaving Cancer with no rhythm section, guitarist and helmsman John Walker has continued undaunted, relocating the band to Madrid and rekindling the moribund flame anew with their latest studio foray, Inverted World.

A tapestry of dystopian dread has been painted that builds upon the strength established 7 years ago and comes within striking distance of where this outfit was at their early 90s zenith, delivering one crushing anthem after another in the same sonic spirit that delivered seminal thrash-tinged death metal staples like Master’s eponymous debut and Scream Bloody Gore.

Bassist Daniel Maganto and drummer Gabriel Valcazar prove equally adept to their predecessors in providing a brutal bottom end and thunderous fury to Walker’s signature riff work, while newly recruited shredder Robert Navajas’ harrowing solos almost perfectly recapture that magical edge that James Murphy brought to the fold 34 years prior. In essence, this is the same band that Cancer was in their prime, despite being comprised almost entirely of new members and being based at Europe’s southwestern fringe.

Tried and true might well be the order of the day with these songs, but they hit with a level of intensity and impact that makes them as shocking as they were when extreme metal was still a novel sound. Meaty berserker anthems like the opening colossus “Enter The Gates” and similarly molded golems of pure mayhem in title anthem “Inverted World” and “Amputate” present a brand of death metal that is both forbidding yet well-rounded in their approach to mixing pure brutality with a penchant for mid-paced grooving amid the fast-paced carnage.

John Walker’s forceful bark presents the most static element of a musical approach that emphasizes progression to an apex point that usually lands on Navajas’ technically intricate solo sections, resulting in songs that are highly accessible and even catchy. This tendency comes to a head with the ultra-memorable banger entry “Until They Died”, which manages to go from a pummeling groove that could be likened to death metal’s answer to Slayer’s Seasons In The Abyss and ends up blasting away with the same fury as Cannibal Corpse; the most iconic entry in an album oozing with memorable moments.

Though the general formula at play here emphasizes a straightforward mode of aggression, Walker and company take several opportunities to mix things up a bit and keep from repeating themselves. The upper mid-tempo crusher “39 Bodies” has all the lyrical hallmarks of an early 90s death metal tale drenched in blood and gore, but musically it brilliantly melds the classic auditory violence of Death’s Leprosy with the sort of groovy punch that one might have heard out of mid-90s Entombed.

“Test Site” and “Corrosive” take the more simplistic approach even further, the latter seeing Valcazar’s dark and dreary bass work shine through the arrangement and could almost be mistaken for the hardcore-tinged mode of brutality that Jungle Rot was dabbling with in the late 90s, though Navajas’ solo breaks come off a bit fancier and Walker’s riff work seems a bit more elaborate.

But the one chapter in this decrepit sonic tale that stands out from the pack is the haunting acoustic ballad turned chaotic crescendo “Jesus For Eugenics”, which draws Cancer even closer to late 80s Slayer territory save for Walker’s morose grunts.

There may be further strides towards that illusive state of perfection that all bands seek once this lineup has had the time to jell into a more cohesive unit, but Cancer has landed with enough of a mighty crash here that any old school death metal junkie would be hard pressed to find any fault with what has been brought to the table here.

Inverted World is the sort of uncompromising, musically impressive fist to the jaw that has been in short supply until recent years, and even now it feels like a rare gem in a pile of unrefined coal. It hits with slightly more force and has more staying power than Benediction’s latest LP, but treads a similarly traditional swamp despite now being situated on one of the opposite corners of Europe.

The world may be a bleak and inhospitable place, but Cancer brings forth a collection of anthems chronicling the worst of what it has to offer in both literal and metaphorical terms that ironically make it all seem just a little more bearable.

Release Date: April 25th, 2025
Record Label: Peaceville Records
Genre: Death Metal

Musicians:

• John Walker / Guitars, Vocals
• Daniel Maganto / Bass
• Gabriel Valcázar / Drums
• Robert Navajas / Guitars

Inverted World Track-list:

1. Enter The Gates
2. Until They Died
3. Inverted World
4. Bodies
5. Test Site
6. Amputate
7. When Killing Isn’t Murder
8. Covert Operations
9. Jesus For Eugenics
10. Corrosive

Order Inverted World here