An odd band this General Surgery is; they were founded as early as 1988, but quickly quit after the release of one EP in 1991. Somehow the band was resurrected some 12 years later. Even though they weren’t on tour, they did a few shows throughout Europe including a stop at the Baroeg.

Three support acts were selected, of which the first is the Dutch band Dr. Doom. They have a strong basis in grindcore, a la Nasum but also include some other elements in their music such as doom and death metal. Quite an okay band really, but not entirely my cup of tea. The 25 minutes they played were enough for me.

Second there was Moker from Belgium (Dutch for sledgehammer). This band looks more like a metalcore mixed with hiphop from the look of most members but actually play a form death metal with some (albeit few) *core elements. Overall it is pretty simplistic and straightforward metal and not particularly interesting. This was probably aggravated by the too loud triggered drums, that made the guitars nearly inaudible especially during blast beats.

The last support slot was given to another Dutch grind act – Inhume. Most of the crowd seemed to have come for this band as they drew quite some attention and even a moshpit got going. But much like Dr Doom, I get easily bored by this kind of music, as most of the songs just sound too similar to mine ears.

At last General Surgery started to play. All dressed in white except the drummer who wore a blue surgeon outfit and all cover in (fake) blood. It is quite clear that they are heavily inspired by the first two Carcass albums but they aren’t exact clones really. Besides Carcass’ first album is nearly unlistenable due to the terrible production. Anyway, most of the songs they played were off their debut album “Left Hand Pathology” (a pun on Entombed’s debut “Left Hand Path” I guess) mixed with some of the earlier mentioned EP and some new songs as well. After the regular set they even returned for an encore and ended with a cover of an old classic by Carnage: “The day Man Lost”. In short a pretty good gig for a pretty good band but just a bit too short – only 45 minutes or so.