Forgotten Gems-Cancer-Death shall rise

I remember buying this one on cassette back in 1991. This was back in my death metal phase so anything that growled and flew by at 100 MPH was up my alley. In the early 1990's one of the top death metal scenes around was in the Tampa, Florida area. Cancer didn't hail from there. In fact they were from England, but the sound here was pure Florida death metal. Obituary, Death and Autopsy are all influences. A large part of the sound and the quality is likely due to the fact that James Murphy (Death, Testament and a pile of others) came to the band for this album. That probably explains the influences too, but he also brings his experience and his flair. I wore this one out back in the early 90's, but my tastes changed and I hadn't heard this album in about 17 years. Until the other day I decided to download it and give it a shot. Not every album of this style from back that has held up well, but fortunately this one has. Only eight songs and it's fairly predictable for the style, but it's actually even better than I remembered. It retains the speed and heaviness, but there are also some real grooves that many acts of still were sadly lacking. On "Death shall rise" every song is solid with a strong attention to detail. That last part is likely what has made this album hold up so well for 20 plus years. My only regret was that I waited so long to give this one a chance again.