{"id":403150,"date":"2025-11-25T07:58:22","date_gmt":"2025-11-25T07:58:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/403150\/"},"modified":"2025-11-25T07:58:22","modified_gmt":"2025-11-25T07:58:22","slug":"chairmaker-leviathan-carcass-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/403150\/","title":{"rendered":"Chairmaker – Leviathan Carcass Review"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Shit\u2019s gone to the dogs, man. I don\u2019t need to justify this claim. I know it, you know it, and multi-instrumentalist\/university lecturer\/UK extreme metal devotee Neil Erskine sure knows it, confirmed thoroughly by his new grind outfit Chairmaker <\/strong>and their debut record Leviathan Carcass. A solo effort outside of mixing and mastering, Chairmaker <\/strong>is Erskine\u2019s newest conduit for the condemnation of malignant societal forces and the \u201creactionism and lack of critical thinking that occupies the online political landscape.\u201d This is grind. This all checks out. Chairmaker<\/strong>\u2019s blood is boiling on Leviathan Carcass, but can they get the listener\u2019s boiling, too?<\/p>\n

Leviathan Carcass is made of small pieces that all embody the grind spirit: nasty, brutish and short. Chairmaker <\/strong>rages with the pointed hostility of acts like Brutal Truth<\/strong>, describing extreme conditions via scathing lyrics and throat-eviscerating screams while prescribing extreme responses by way of belligerent speed and riffcraft. Songs like \u201cRatlicker\u201d and \u201cGood Art by Shit People\u201d begin and end with little or no to-do, and every track hovers around a minute long except the two-and-a-half-minute \u201cDead Optimists.\u201d Chairmaker <\/strong>are economic on Leviathan Carcass, filling every second with riffs and beats of deathly (\u201cMaking Nails\u201d), scronky (\u201cLeviathan Carcass\u201d) and chugging natures (\u201cHalf a Puppy\u201d), recorded with caustic tones and a suffocating production sure to sandpaper the sides of your brain smooth. The emotional needle of Leviathan Carcass sits motionless at the far end of pissed-off, reaching rancorous fever pitches on the blast beat bonanzas of \u201cPigfucker\u201d and \u201cLoud, Confident and Wrong.\u201d For almost fifteen minutes, Chairmaker <\/strong>states in certain terms just how Erskine feels about our current socio-political landscape on Leviathan Carcass.<\/p>\n

\ufeffLeviathan Carcass by Chairmaker<\/a><\/p>\n

Amidst the flash-in-the-pan bursts of pure aggression, Chairmaker <\/strong>display sneaky depth in Leviathan Carcass. Despite the breakneck business of Leviathan Carcass, its riffs are discernible and technical. From the dissonant and squeal-filled \u201cDead Optimists,\u201d to the one-string ascending \u201cPowdered Nostalgia,\u201d to the math-y chops of \u201cOthers\u2019 Interest,\u201d Leviathan Carcass lives in chaotic intentionality. Further, though Chairmaker<\/strong>\u2019s songs flow together so seamlessly that it\u2019s easy to miss where they start and end, Leviathan Carcass contains personality within individual tracks. Even in simple riffs there\u2019s identity: \u201cMaking Nails\u201d has a more vintage death metal sound, \u201cPigfucker\u201d goes off with hammer-offs and \u201cHagiographers\u201d sees Chairmaker <\/strong>make quick stops that gives the song a jerky, off-balance feel. Naturally, being grind, there are samples throughout Leviathan Carcass, and the ones here either introduce the songs effectively and amusingly (\u201cMicron-Thick Skin,\u201d \u201cHalf a Puppy\u201d) or are incorporated in the middle of songs naturally and unobtrusively (\u201cLeviathan Carcass,\u201d \u201cDead Optimists\u201d). Bundle it all with well-written, inflamed lyricism, and you got yourself an album with legs.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

This being said, Chairmaker <\/strong>still don\u2019t rise above some of the things that make grind a hard sell for many. For one, I wonder how effective Erskine\u2019s lyrics can be to most listeners when delivered in such an indecipherable, monotonous manner. Whether railing against ideologically-driven historical revisionism on \u201cPowdered Nostalgia,\u201d the bottomless greed of the 1% on \u201cOthers\u2019 Interest,\u201d or any number of other topics on Leviathan Carcass, Chairmaker <\/strong>use the same language of relentless noise to communicate it vocally. I think some of the individual nuances of the messaging are lost as a result. Further, though many of its songs are fully baked despite their runtimes, some songs like \u201cRatlicker\u201d or \u201cMicron-Thick Skin\u201d feel somewhat incomplete, like they\u2019re missing a section or two needed to really bring it home. The relentless energy of Leviathan Carcass also means the album is mostly one-note, meaning it\u2019s both easy to lose focus and hard to get in if you aren\u2019t already bought in on grind. Chairmaker <\/strong>is a more than competent grind outfit, but Leviathan Carcass likely won\u2019t change too many minds about the genre, either.<\/p>\n

But Leviathan Carcass was not assembled while senselessly incensed, but instead incensed by senselessness, and that makes all the difference for Chairmaker<\/strong>\u2019s success. Leviathan Carcass is a vicious record, and while specific details of its listening experience might not stick easily, the overall impact of it lasts well after its conclusion. At Leviathan Carcass\u2019s worst, Chairmaker <\/strong>is still an entertaining and thoughtful entity. At its best, Leviathan Carcass is the kind of teeth-gritting, knuckle-whitening ragestorm everyone needs once in a while. I have no idea why he went with \u201cChairmaker<\/strong>,\u201d though. It\u2019s a bit befuddling.<\/p>\n

Rating<\/strong>: Good
DR<\/strong>: 4 | Format Reviewed<\/strong>: ~260 kb\/s VBR mp3
Label<\/strong>: Self-Released
Websites<\/strong>: chairmakerblast.bandcamp.com<\/a>
Releases Worldwide<\/strong>: November 14th, 2025<\/p>\n

\n\tGive in to Your Anger:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Shit\u2019s gone to the dogs, man. I don\u2019t need to justify this claim. I know it, you know…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":403151,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[1444,55679,190620,190621,23639,171,190622,190623,975,175308,2290,11853,118439,118445,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-403150","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-1444","9":"tag-3-0","10":"tag-brutal-truth","11":"tag-chairmaker","12":"tag-death-metal","13":"tag-entertainment","14":"tag-grind","15":"tag-leviathan-carcass","16":"tag-music","17":"tag-nov25","18":"tag-review","19":"tag-reviews","20":"tag-self-released","21":"tag-uk-metal","22":"tag-united-states","23":"tag-unitedstates","24":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115609280398677932","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/403150","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=403150"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/403150\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/403151"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=403150"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=403150"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=403150"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}