Unlike The County Medical Examiners, General Surgery is a lot more respectable of a Carcass-clone. General Surgery still rips off Carcass to an insane degree, but the band makes an effort closer to acts like Bodies Lay Broken and others to actually put some twists into the music to give it its own identity.

General Surgery’s sound is derived mostly from the first two Carcass albums, but after the first few seconds of "If These Walls Could Talk" the listener is hit with a curve-ball: non-Carcass groove. That’s right. General Surgery actually makes an attempt to play and individualize with their influences as opposed to replicate like their cohorts in TCME. The general sound of Left Hand Pathology is an interesting mix of classic Carcass, bits of Gruesome Stuff Relish’s guitar work and song structure, and a sense of rhythm and groove not actually written by Carcass! It’s fast, it’s fun, it’s catchy, and for the most part it’s actually guilt-free.

With Left Hand Pathology, General Surgery has elevated itself to the category of acts that know how to do metal worship: bands like Gadget, Rotten Sound, Gruesome Stuff Relish, Bodies Lay Broken, etc. who derive their sounds from Nasum, Carcass, and others yet breathe enough new life into their work that they create a recognizable identity for themselves. Left Hand Pathology is hardly exemplary, but it’s a good start for General Surgery. It’s definitely worth a listen.

Written By: Necro-tron