Reek of Putrefaction

Reek of Putrefaction was recorded in four days at Rich Bitch Studios in Birmingham between December 1987 and March 1988, produced by the band with Paul Talbot. The line-up is the trio of Bill Steer on guitars, Jeff Walker on bass and Ken Owen on drums, all three of them singing. Steer was still a member of Napalm Death at the time, and Carcass had begun as something he did alongside it. The band did not want this sound. Jeff Walker told Metal Hammer that the record was spoilt by a really lazy engineer who could not give a damn any more, and that it was a shame because there were killer riffs on there, muddied by the production. Steer has said the album was not very focused, that it was just about being fast and heavy, and that the murk was inexperience rather than intent. John Peel of BBC Radio 1 championed it all the same, naming it his favourite album of 1988 in an interview with the Observer. The sleeve is a collage of autopsy photographs taken from medical journals; the larger shops would not carry it, the 1994 and 2002 reissues censored it, and the 2008 edition was sold inside a white medical bag. It reached number six on the British independent chart. The running order here is that of the original 12-inch, Earache MOSH 6: eleven songs on side one, "Faecal Disarticulation", and eleven on side two, "Anal Disgorgement".