We’re being squealing fangirls since we heard a minute of Carcass yesterday (following the song we heard last week). Partially because Surgical Steel is finally coming out after a year or so of speculation, but mainly because what we’ve heard so far of the band’s first album in 17 years has decimated our expectations. Now the album cover has made its way online, and as could be expected from a band that got their early song titles from looking through medical journals, the cover of Surgical Steel consists of… a bunch of surgical instruments arranged in a circle. It’s not quite up the level of the H.R. Giger-designed Heartwork, but it’s not all that dissimilar, and we like it. Surgical Steel will be released on September 17 on Nuclear Blast.

UPDATE: The new cover artwork still looks great. BUT a reader named Dongus just brought to our attention that it shares a striking resemblance to the Tools Of The Trade EP cover. Furthermore, the new cover also looks similar to the inner sleeve of Necroticism – Descanting the Insalubrious (as reader Joseph Kasak pointed out on Facebook). Take a look at both the other artwork below, and judge for yourself.