CARTILAGE Wheel Out "S.C.D. (Sudden Cardiac Death)" Video As Concept Album "Operating Altar" Nears September 11 Release

San Francisco deathgrind crew CARTILAGE have released a video for "S.C.D. (Sudden Cardiac Death)", taken from their third full-length "Operating Altar", out September 11 on Everlasting Spew Records.

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"Operating Altar" is the band's first concept album, and the first time they have hung a single narrative across a record without slackening the blast beats. The nine tracks follow Matthew Krolmark's descent into medical madness at St. Petersen's University Hospital, a setting the band treats with the straight face the material demands. Vocalist Mark Wallace and guitarist/vocalist Ria Flory push their grunts and shrieks toward something closer to theatre than to the usual gurgle.

"At St. Petersen's University Hospital, nightmares become coursework, and 'Operating Altar' is the soundtrack to those horrors," the band says. "CARTILAGE channel Matthew Krolmark's descent into medical madness with a single, sprawling deathgrind opus: faster than a panicked heartbeat, sharper than Dr. Warwick Locke's questionable scalpel, and dripping with enough gore to violate several ethical boards."

The album was recorded and mixed by Scott Evans (NEUROSIS, EXHUMED, AUTOPSY) and mastered by Leon del Muerte, with cover art by David Romero (Cinemamind). It arrives on CD, cassette and digital, and follows "Dialect Of The Dead" (2017), "The Deader The Better" (2022) and last year's EP "Tales From The Entrails".

Four days after release the band hit the road with Washington D.C.'s GOETIA, alongside DEGRAVED and UNIDAD TRAUMA, on their longest run yet — across the western United States and into Mexico. GOETIA drop off for the final two dates.

CARTILAGE 2026 tour dates with GOETIA: