Waking The Cadaver are an American Deathcore band, playing in the vein of Slam Death Metal bands like Devourment. Ironically, the band's rise in popularity had begun with a Misheard Lyrics video sometime back even before they even made their debut. Since then, they moved away from the slam stereotypes and their variety of death metal/deathcore has moved to a more traditional NYDM sound ala bands like Suffocation and Dying Fetus.
They formed under the name Death To Honor before the name change in 2006. In that same year, they released their infamous two-track demo that would be the center of said video that would forever change them.
For Reasons unexplained, they split up in 2014. Campan is currently part of Hate Diplomacy along with members of Dehumanized, while Hartman is still going strong with his main band Mortal Decay (a longtime NJDM stalwart), Mayo has been devoting his time to the grindcore/powerviolence act Ground, and former guitarist Rob Wharton has been having a decent amount of success with Cognitive. The rest have not done much since then.
As of 2018, the band is officially back from the dead. Campan and Mayo have returned, while Tim Carey (Disinhume), Michael Thomas (Ground), and Matt Crismond (Corpse Hoarder) are all new faces.
Members:
- Don Campan — Vocals (2006–14, 2018-present)
- Mike Mayo — Guitar (2008–14, 2018-present)
- Michael Thomas — Bass (2018-present)
- Marco "Lord Marco" Pitruzzella — Drums (2021-present)
Albums:
- Perverse Recollections of a Necromangler (2007)
- Beyond Cops, Beyond God (2010)
- Real-Life Death (2013)
- Authority Through Intimidation (2021)
The band provides examples of the following tropes:
- Actually Pretty Funny: Their current feelings towards the infamous "Shredded Wheat" video, and especially those of Don, who is quite willing to admit that it was hilarious.
- Ascended Meme: "Shredded Wheat" has become this as of their reunion, as Don has referred to older songs onstage as "old-school shredded wheat shit" (or variations thereof), and at least one of their current shirt designs involves shredded wheat.
- Careful with That Axe: The vast majority of Campan's vocals on the first album consist of wheezy "pig squeals". Later albums would downplay this in favor of traditional death metal growling.
- Deathcore: Of the slam death-influenced variety
- Darker and Edgier: Than most other deathcore bands.
- Genre-Busting: Best described as slam, deathcore, and hardcore mixed in the same blender.
- Gorn: The lyrics are mostly just straight up violence on Beyond Cops...
- Harsh Vocals: Mostly pig squeals on the first album, with later works switching to more traditional death growls.
- Hip-Hop: While Don denies being fans of said music, the band's fashion sense and pseudo-rapped lyrics say otherwise.
- Indecipherable Lyrics: All over the place on the first album. Subsequent albums manage to be slightly more intelligible, though Don's lows are still consistently impossible to understand.
- Metal Scream: Campan is a mix of Type 1 and Type 2, sporting a mix of gurgling lows and heavily hardcore-inflected bellowing mids.
- Misogyny Song: Played straight with the first album (as one might have guessed from such song titles as "Chased Through the Woods by a Rapist"). Averted with Beyond Cops, Beyond God and Real-Life Death, which focused more on deranged sociopathy and "Tough Guy" lyrics.
- New Sound Album: Beyond Cops has a more standard Brutal Death Metal sound, with the slams being downplayed in favor of faster riffs.
- Older and Wiser: Don Campan was notorious in the band's early days for his indignant responses to the band's critics. He's mellowed out since the band reunited, and has even poked fun at their early work.
- Pretty Fly for a White Guy: One of the most frequently mocked aspects of the band is their very wigger-ish appearance.
- Rated M for Manly: Aimed for this later as their lyrical theme, mostly of the Unstoppable Rage variety.
- Start My Own: Rob Wharton (who played on Beyond Cops, Beyond God) did this with Cognitive, while Mike Mayo did the same with Ground. Subverted with Hate Diplomacy, as they had been around since Dimas Mendez was living in Puerto Rico and gained Campan (along with the rest of the lineup) well after they had formed, as Mendez moved to the US in the mid-2010s minus the rest of the original lineup.
- Trope Codifier: Was one of the many bands that started the Slam/Deathcore hybrids in the late 2000s.
- Vocal Evolution: Campan's vocals became significantly clearer on Beyond Cops, Beyond God.
