Professional ratings
Aggregate scores
Source	Rating
Metacritic	86/100
Review scores
Source	Rating
Allmusic
Brave Words & Bloody Knuckles	10/10
Blabbermouth.net	9/10
Loudwire
Metal Forces	8/10
PopMatters	9/10
Pitchfork Media	7.9/10
Record Collector

Surgical Steel is the sixth full-length album by British death metal band Carcass. The album was released on 13 September 2013 in Europe, 16 September in the UK, and 17 September in North America, via Nuclear Blast.Surgical Steel is their first album since Swansong (1996). The album features the first songs Carcass has recorded since reforming in 2007. Surgical Steel is their first album with drummer Dan Wilding and their first to reach the Top 50 in UK album charts.

Carcass disbanded in 1996, prior to the release of their album Swansong. Walker, Steer, and Amott reformed in 2007 with Arch Enemy drummer Daniel Erlandsson as a live act and performed at festivals around the world for the next several years. In 2008, Steer said in an interview that a new album was unlikely due to Amott's and Walker's busy schedules. Also in 2008, Walker told Decibel that the reunion would not produce any new material, saying, "I don't see how it could ever happen, because me, Mike and Bill are all bandleaders. There'd be too many guys thinking they know better." However, in that same interview, he acknowledged that Steer had been "showing [Amott] riffs" that may lead to new songs.

While touring in 2008, Steer watched drummer Dan Wilding play and felt inspired by his similarity to former Carcass drummer Ken Owen, who had been unable to join Carcass for the reunion due to a cerebral hemorrhage he suffered in 1999. Amott and Erlandsson left the band in 2012 to focus on Arch Enemy, and Steer and Walker recruited Wilding to record Surgical Steel, which they financed independently as they had no label backing at the time.

The German magazine Legacy premiered the Surgical Steel song "Captive Bolt Pistol" in June 2013 on a sampler CD, titled Hell Is Here, promoting the 2013 Party.San Open Air festival. Nuclear Blast released the song as a free download on 16 July and released a 7" vinyl single the week of 9 August with "Intensive Battery Brooding" on the B-side. Carcass played a five-date North American tour in September 2013, followed by a longer tour of Europe in November 2013 with death metal band Amon Amarth.Decibel premiered "Zochrot", a song recorded during the Surgical Steel sessions, as a flexi disc included with Decibel's October 2013 issue.

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