Cancer is a British-Spanish death/thrash band formed in 1987. One of the faces of U.K. extreme metal, they are considered one of Europe's landmark death metal bands of the early 1990s and have been highly influential on later acts despite their extremely short initial run and rocky history.
Their first album To the Gory End was released in 1990 and received rave reviews. Taking influence from both Florida death metal and Bay Area thrash, it was praised for its powerful production work and catchy songwriting, cementing them as a poster child for their country's scene alongside Bolt Thrower, Napalm Death, and Carcass. Even greater success would follow with their second album Death Shall Rise, which featured guitar from James Murphy of Death and Obituary fame.
Their third album The Sins of Mankind featured a slower and more epic take on their established sound which, while not quite as acclaimed as their first two, nevertheless received positive feedback and was yet another successful album from the group. That being said, despite things seemingly looking up for them, that would unfortunately not prove to be the case.
Black Faith, released in 1995, would cause their reputation to plummet almost overnight. It moved away from their death metal roots in favor of an industrial and groove metal-influenced sound, with singer John Walker sounding nearly unrecognizable and very few remnants of their core style audible. While it had its fans, the end result was generally received very poorly and alienated their fanbase to the point that its reception directly contributed to their breakup, which they also stated was due to their distaste for major labels.
For almost a decade after, they remained dormant before attempting a comeback with Spirit in Flames in 2005. However, despite its attempt to fuse their Black Faith sound with their original style, it was even more negatively received than its predecessor and was generally seen as a directionless mishmash of ideas that had no clue what it wanted to be, and as a result, they faded away once again.
With the members all focusing on other projects and no word of any activity from them for the remainder of the 2000s, it seemed that Cancer was done for good. But like their namesake, anything can happen after a long remission regardless of how slim the chances, and in their case, they did in fact return despite all the odds stacked against them.
Having relocated to Spain to be closer to his wife and Liquid Graveyard bandmate Raquel, John Walker decided to once again resurrect the band in 2013. After performing several shows and tours for a few years, they decided to try their hand at new material, and their sixth studio album as well as first in 13 years, Shadow Gripped, arrived in 2018. Against all expectations, the album was met with very strong reception and was an almost complete return to pure death metal. It was hailed as their best album since at least Sins of Mankind and it seemed as if the group had finally found their footing in the modern era.
Since then, the band has been going strong and continues to perform to this day. In 2022, the group was joined by drummer Gabriel Valcazar and second guitarist Miguel Frutos of Wormed fame, the latter of whom being a lifelong fan of the band.
In 2024, Miguel left. While he didn't explain exactly why, he stated that it was due to personal reasons. As the band's next album is being worked on, it is currently unknown if any of his contributions will appear.
Main Discography:
- To the Gory End (1990)
- Death Shall Rise (1991)
- The Sins of Mankind (1993)
- Black Faith (1995)
- Spirit in Flames (2005)
- Shadow Gripped (2018)
TROPES FUCKING TROPES
- Gorn: A good majority of their songs are about either gore, sex, horror, or some mix of the three. Not exactly shocking with song names like "Ballcutter", "Tasteless Incest", "Blood Bath", or "Meat Train".
- Multinational Team: After being based in Spain for several years, they officially became one when Gabriel Valcazar and Migueloud joined, as their previous former members have all been from England.
- New Sound Album: Black Faith and Spirit in Flames were closer to Industrial Metal than Death Metal.
