Tab from the slab - more Exhumed tablature

Well, one of my new year's resolutions was to post more downloadable stuff here on this blog, so I decided after the Exodus post last week, I should keep it coming. This week we have some tabs for a few Exhumed songs. First up is "The Matter Of Splatter" - the best-known song from the "Anatomy Is Destiny" record, written by departed axe-slinger Mike Beams. This has some signature Beams stuff, tons of rapid-fire non-stop alternate-picking riffs, and jumbled, chromatic note patterns that are a bit difficult to discern and make the fingers on my left hand stumble over each other on the verse riffs. Col and I really insisted that every song have a typical rock song structure - verse, chorus, verse chorus, bridge, verse chorus, and when Mike brought this tune to us, we immediately caught on to its structural simplicity. It was exactly what we wanted to hear, and exactly what the "Anatomy..." record needed. On an album weighed down by some of our longest, often needlessly intricate song-structures (see prime offender "Under The Knife"), "The Matter Of Splatter" sticks out by being nice and straightforward. It was the no-brainer choice for the video single from the album. If you want to work on your alternate-picking technique, look no further, but good luck jamming to the record, as the meter is very, um... "organic".  Oh, and the other thing about this song is that the discerning listener will notice an uncanny similarity in arrangement to "Damage Inc." 

The official music video for "The Matter Of Splatter" - I don't think anyone in the band actually liked how this came out, but what the heck.

The Matter Of Splatter

Next up is one from the first record - "Open The Abscess" - again, jamming to the record for this song is virtually impossible - not only is the timing completely by feel, but the guitar tone is virtually indecipherable. Even immediately after we recorded the record, none of us were happy with the production. But, what can you do? It's one of those "couldn't replicate it if we were trying to" kind of things.  Anyway, this song is actually pretty similar to "Matter of Splatter" structurally, but the riffs are totally different. I was kind of trying to capture something like a Death / Grind version of Destruction's "Bestial Invasion" when I wrote this. The whole song is really built around the vocal hook, which is sort of unusual in this genre. Until "Anatomy...", this was pretty much our most well-known song, and we still usually use "Open..." as our set closer. Enjoy grinding this one out, kids. 

I've posted this version of this song before, but in case you missed it - here's a little "Gore Metal" era nostalgia from the Western US leg of the "All Guts, No Glory" tour, as we're joined onstage by Monsewer Ross Sewage and Mike Beams...

Open The Abscess

Rounding out this post is a couple moldy oldies... I happened to have these already transcribed, so I figured what the heck. Nowadays instead of sitting around and showing the other guys older songs riff by riff, I just give them the tab, which they then ignore and I end up sitting around showing them the songs riff by riff. But - after that - they have something to refer to and I don't have to keep doing that. We used to do Septicemia in the set when we were touring with Danny, and we actually tried to re-record it as a bonus track when we re-recorded "Necromaniac" and "Forged In Fire" for "All Guts, No Glory", but after bashing out 17 songs in 2 days, Danny was physically and mentally burnt, which was totally understandable. We did however, dust off "Excreting Innards" for the first round of shows we did last year, which was pretty fun. "Excreting..." I actually wrote while I was still in high school, so it's pretty simplistic, which is probably it's second best quality, right behind its merciful brevity. 

Excreting Innards

"Excreting Innards / Slaughtercult / Limb From Limb / Eruction (Wes' guitar solo) / Forged In Fire" live in Norway - my voice is shot to shit from watching Voivod the previous night, but you should get the idea...

Septicemia

Exhumed live at Baroeg in Rotterdam, Holland in 1997, leading off with an intro that should be familiar to anyone who has the new album, followed by the first two songs from the "In The Name Of Gore" split - "Horrendous Member Dismemberment" and "Septicemia" - back when we were the sloppiest band in the entire universe, and when that Possessed shirt still more or less fit me... Ah, the good ol' days!

If, for some very odd reason, you're looking for more Exhumed tab, check out this earlier blog here...