When The County Medical Examiners full length Forensic Fugues And Medicolegal Medleys was first released there was a lot of hype surrounding the band. Everyone was talking about how the group consisted of "real" medical examiners from California and the band included a female medical student by the name of Michelle Hayes who played bass and did vocals. When Michelle "left" after the full length was released and a 60 year old by the name of Dr. Guy Radcliffe took over for her. To this day I still see people talking about it. All I can tell anyone who believes that the band actually consists of elderly men and real medical examiners; I’ve got a time share plan I absolutely must show you.

The County Medical Examiners are not medical examiners. None of them have saggy old man balls, the closest they come is gargling on the sacks of Ken Owen, Jeff Walker and Bill Steer. Don’t believe me? Check out the official listing of medical examiners in the state of California, it’s public knowledge and none of these guys show up anywhere on the list. So who are The County Medical Examiners? Well, I won’t give away the full surprise, but the domain is owned by a former Exhumed bassist and it doesn’t take a lot of mental energy to put 2+2 together there so hopefully you’ll start kicking yourself in the face now and screaming out loud about how much of a moron you were for believing the gimmick of a Razorback band. I also hate to break it to you, but the Tooth Fairy, Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, Pamela Anderson’s breasts and Mortiis‘ nose aren’t real either.

But wait! I’m not debunking The County Medical Examiners just yet! Everyone whose heard Forensic Fugues And Medicolegal Medleys swears it sounds exactly like Symphonies Of Sickness or Reek Of Putrefaction or even Necroticism: Descanting The Insalubrious. While the album has the same complete shit production as Symphonies Of Sickness or Reek Of Putrefaction, and the guitars are tuned similarly and the music has similar vocals, there’s one enormous difference between early Carcass and Forensic Fugues And Medicolegal Medleys; Carcass were talented musicians who could write amazing songs in a completely new and inventive style, whereas The County Medical Examiners simply try to ride the coat tails of Carcass and play a completely bland and generic sounding cloned version of the gore masters, and, worse still, brag about it.

Another thing is that Bill Steer never sounded like Donald Duck choking to death while doing his vocals on early Carcass material, whereas "Michelle Hayes" sounds like she’s Party Girl #9 in Bukkake Gang Bang Mania #37. While the music of Carcass was catchy and evil, The County Medical Examiners sound incredibly generic and unintentionally comical.

There is literally nothing of interest on this album, and yet for a few months this was the only band you’d see people talking about on underground metal message boards. The reason being; everyone truly believed this band was a group of REAL medical examiners who were playing Carcass-inspired goregrind. Once you take off the white lab coats and expose them for who they are, and re-examine the music, you realize the band just had a really great gimmick but their music was about as "awesome" as X-Cops.

If you’re looking for quality Carcass worship, I’d recommend picking up Symphonies Of Sickness, Reek Of Putrefaction and Necroticism: Descanting The Insalubrious because the only band around that has the Carcass sound perfectly is… Carcass. It’s like going to the store and deciding to pick up the No Name brand chocolate chip cookies instead of Chips Ahoy! While they may contain similar ingredients, it only takes one bite to tell the difference between the brand name item and the No Name piece of shit that crumbles in your fingers and tastes like rat turds. Don’t eat rat turds, kids; eat only Carcass-name items… except Swansong, that was just a waste of plastic.

Written By: Teufel