(written by Islander)
If you see people like these, your first impulse (a sensible one) would be to run first, ask questions later. And you absolutely should run, as fast as you can, but toward their music, not away from it.
Take it from me, a first-hand observer of the unhinged Cartilage performance in Seattle at the 2022 edition of Northwest Terror Fest, their live shows are about as much hell-raising fun as you could want. Their recorded music is kickass too. When we premiered their second album The Deader the Better (also in 2022), I spewed a lot of words, including these:
Cartilage discharge songs that slash like serial killers, convulse in seizures, sear like an acetylene torch, maul like bulldozers, and lurch like zombies (the slow ones, not the fast ones), and as crazed and kaleidoscopic as the songs usually are, they’re cleverly embedded with hook-y melodies and head-moving grooves.
On top of all that, Cartilage manage to make the tracks feel feral even though it quickly becomes evident that all the instrumentalists have got lots of top-shelf technical chops (enough to make prog and tech-death bands jealous) and a sense of twisted adventurousness in the way they write songs.
But don’t take my word for it. Take the word of the dependably tasteful Everlasting Spew Records, who signed Cartilage for the release of their new EP, Tales From The Entrails: A Necrology. Here’s how the label introduces this new feast of frenzy: Continue reading »
