Cannibal Corpse - Chaos Horrific (2023)

I'm going to say this up front: I like Vincent Locke's artwork, I like that the band is high on consistency, but would it kill Cannibal Corpse to explore some other color palettes once in awhile? It's not that the cover to Chaos Horrific is bad or unfitting whatsoever, but considering how the band is often criticized for some of the sameness of their death metal material, it might help a fraction to vary up the packaging. Other than that, though, I have few if any complaints about their 16th studio album, because their sound is not one I grow that weary of, and while it's got a lot of the predictable, hammering, gory elements, you can hear them occasionally trying to throw a few new hooks or patterns at you when they can spare the expansion. That said, if you're not a fan of the George Corpsegrinder era of the band, now the default at nearly three decades, if you're pining for those simpler times of the early 90s, Chaos Horrific is not going to change your mind.

This is the battering, clinical, darkly brutal death metal they've been releasing since Vile with few if many alterations other than who is in the lineup, what they can offer, and minor differences in production. I for one prefer this flurried, semi-technical style and I'm constantly exploring the substrate of gore for all the tasty, meaty little hooks, but there's no question that you could mix up a bunch of tracks off the last ten albums on a playlist and perhaps forget which album they came from beyond a few standouts. All of these tunes are almost obnoxiously consistent, packed with agile little palm-muted chops and evil tremolo picked rhythms that alternate against groovier, weighted hooks like those that set up "Blood Blind" and its roiling horror show. One thing that's great about Cannibal Corpse, you can almost always discern the thrash roots and propulsion through their material, where other bands in the more cavernous style seem to have distanced themselves more from those fundamentals, this feels like that genre armored up with more oozing entrails and a growling animal and set to non-stop headbanging. If only all our necks could endure this as much as George's can!

I wouldn't mind more leads to whirlwind about here, but with Erik Rutan in the fold, you know where they do appear they're going to kick ass, and they do, like the eerie harmonies and exchanges in the center of "Fracture and Refracture". Alex and Paul still mete out the rhythmic bottom end like players 20 years their junior, and Rob and Erik load every song up with too many chops to ever bore from, even if there is that slight monotonous sense that they're largely small alterations on past progressions. The album is totally ferocious, even where it breaks to let a guitar thrash out or slows into a cyclopean but loaded groove, there is no place for your heart to rest, you are going to be splattered for 40 minutes and you'd best be ready. Rutan's production is quite in line with other recent efforts, and there's no point at which my attention wavered when I was truly in the mood for this style. Favorites include "Pestilential Rictus" for its infectious death/thrashing opening and groovy verse, or the finale "Drain You Empty" for that cool atmospheric intro, but the whole thing smokes just as hard as a lot of their other output from the 2010s and beyond.

Is there still some fleshy masterpiece waiting on the slab, ready for carving? I think the band would have to endure a forced evolution into a more widely-written album, or perhaps a de-evolution to super catchy, simpler tunes with the same charm, but at this point, even if they make another half dozen LPs of this general pace, punishment and quality I'll be supplied with enough bruisings to last me the rest of my days. Nothing broken (except your bones), nothing to fix.

Verdict: Win [8/10]

http://www.cannibalcorpse.net/

Cannibal Corpse - Violence Unimagined (2021)

Cannibal Corpse is one of those acts whose audience seems to always fluctuate between static appreciation and stagnant indifference, so it's curious to see the raised level of buzz concerning their first full-length proper with Erik Rutan on-board as a full-time guitarist and writer. A lot of the chatter revolves around the different sound he brings to the band, and I'll admit that there's one area in which he certainly contributes to a mildly different experience, but I think ultimately Violence Unimagined falls right in line with the style has been exploring since Corpsegrinder joined the band for Vile, and it's one that some might continue to find samey and repetitious in terms of its riffing portfolio, and that others like myself will just continue to admire with each seasoned recording...this is not a band that really ever makes mistakes or half-asses anything, there have been a few albums that don't quite past muster, but Violence Unimagined is not among them.

Yes, you might hear a little bit of the Hate Eternal and Ripping Corpse bleed into Cannibal's forceful, thrash-inspired brutality, but I'd have to say that if not for some of his spurious leads, which bear a degree of distinction in the death metal community, most wouldn't really be able to glean a difference. And that's because, for all the time Erik has spent producing, touring and helping out with this band, he's gotten a complete grasp of what they're all about, and by no means is he out to step on any toes. This is business as usual, with the one exception that you might find a few of the rhythm guitar patterns a little more clinical, and the leads here to just be more epically fleshed and rounded out. He and Barrett remain just as synced as Rob was with Pat, but occasionally you get a dissonant, weirder, bouncier or atmospheric riff that feels more akin to what Erik would insert into his mainstay. But with Alex and Paul plugging and battering along beneath them, and George giving plastering his trademark, agile, syllabic guttural attack on top, you could probably mix and match some of these tunes in with anything from Kill to A Skeletal Domain to Gore Obsessed and be none the wiser, other than  perhaps a few production details.

And I have no problem with that whatsoever, because this band remains the posterchild for the planned, professional death metal assault which I can depend on year in, year out. Vince Locke's gruesome cover artwork is just as edge-worthy as its ever been, and the band supports that with loads of riff-intensive maiming and bludgeoning which I promise will never put you to sleep. There are some slight variations as always within the actual guitar structures, but all fall within a similar lexicon to what you've heard from the band post-The Bleeding, with just enough freshness to keep this one engaging even if you had been a little plagued with redundant feelings for some of its more recent predecessors. Now I'm not going to say this one has a load of absolutely unforgettable riffs; many are just permutations of their predictable, punishing backlog, but the chugging and feral thrashing that has clung with the band since its origins blend into some eerie tremolo picked patterns that will put you in carnage heaven. Paul's performance here is monstrous, the fills intensifying everything around them, and you don't need yet another of my reminders of how Alex is one of the best ever...I don't know that this style works without his swift and malevolent anchoring presence below the hacking higher pitched axes.

Persistence pays off again, and much of this material is set-ready to blend in with their other 100+ choice cuts dating back to the mid-90s. I did find the production a little dry, and like I said there isn't really a particular hit single here which stands out for me far above its surroundings, but rather the whole 43-minute experience had me shit-kicking my office and experiencing daymares of rending flesh, horrifying killers and apocalypses brought to you by the undead. And that earns my money. Every. Single. Time.

Verdict: Win [8.25/10]

http://www.cannibalcorpse.net/

Cannibal Corpse - Red Before Black (2017)

How much is too much of a good thing? For years I've wondered when Cannibal Corpse would finally strike my threshold for redundancy, since they don't exactly offer a lot of variation between studio releases in terms of production, presentation or songwriting. For many, I'd imagine they've already collided into such a barrier years ago, with people still touting their nostalgia for the 'classic' Chris Barnes era recordings, and very little chatter about much that they've put out over the last couple decades, despite a string of consistency and excellence that encompasses works like Gallery of Suicide, Bloodthirst, and several more recent efforts. After hearing the first advance track, "Code of the Slashers", watching the cheesy video and then catching a glimpse of the rather mediocre Vincent Locke artwork here, Corpse's most uninspired cover outside of Kill and Evisceration Plague (both of which I enjoyed a great deal anyway), I did not have high expectations for full-length #14.

As it turns out, I shouldn't have doubted them, because just about every song on this disc is another brutal and energetic exercise in what the band does best. Mid to fast-paced barbarity rooted firmly in the death/thrash of the group's origins, piled on with tireless proficiency by one of the most seasoned acts in the genre. That's not to say there's anything truly fresh or exciting anywhere to be had on Red Before Black, it's hardly an encyclopedia of their most memorable riffs, but once in awhile they'll pull off a few note progressions I can't recall them using before ("Shedding My Human Skin", etc) which fuse perfectly to the alternations between chugging grooves, sinister tremolo picked patterns and the roiling lead and bridge riff pairings that offer up all the album's most atmospheric and engrossing moments, which is how it should be since the mauling momentum of the verses builds up so well towards them. You've heard all these performance levels before from these five individuals, and they never exactly surpass themselves on any of the 12 tunes here, but for a band to be this far along in their career, limb advancing in natural atrophy, it's a marvel that they still hit so fucking hard, the thrashier rhythm guitars like punches to the mid-section, the quicker material evoking sheer carnage.

Nary a chink in the armor, with the exception of the aforementioned "Code of the Slashers", a rather dull piece until its own mid-section, and even some of the most simplistic progressions like the bite of the guitars that open "Firestorm Vengeance" just make you want to punt someone's head clean off their neck-stump. Red Before Black is every bit as pit-ready as their classics, without eschewing the slightly clinical technicality that musicians like Webster, Barrett and O'Brien seamlessly integrate so as not to bore themselves with too much repetition. Corpesgrinder's Target shopping excursions have certainly given him some focus and relaxation, so when it comes time to belch out the latest round of lyrics he still has the same level of flailing, ogreish presence that he's brought to the group since Vile. The violence invoked through the prose isn't highly distinct from a lot of Corpse past, but tunes like "Heads Shoveled Off" still conjure up some grisly amusement as they yet again expand their lexicon of serial killers, body horrors and other outcomes that are not exactly optimistic. In short, you know what this sounds like, and while it's hardly one of their best studio efforts, you are getting what you pay for, a pound for pound visceral onslaught by a guild of veteran executioners.

Verdict: Win [8/10] (dead beyond dead)

http://www.cannibalcorpse.net/

Cannibal Corpse - A Skeletal Domain (2014)

'All their albums sound the same.' 'This band is so stagnant, I haven't been able to stand them since The Bleeding'. Yeah, sure, buddy, keep telling yourself that (but not applying the same logic to most of your other favorite bands), while I continue to enjoy one of the most consistently energized and entertaining streaks in all of death metaldom. Cannibal Corpse have produced what comes as no surprise to me: another great record in a long line of hits, with precious few misses, maintaining that median between elder death metal statesmanship and the dawn of brutality which would launch a million other bands to clean up their trail of carnage. Now, to be fair, I had read some misleading press in advance of the album's release which hinted that this album be different than those before it, which isn't necessarily true, but that's not to say A Skeletal Domain is a carbon copy of Torture or Bloodthirst or any of their other milestones...

It brings a little more visceral excitement than last time around, a little more violence at a faster clip and a lot more of Cannibal's death/thrash roots seem to have loosened in the earth and sprouted up around the sturdier quarter-century death metal trunk. While Torture seemed to be a slightly dialed back level of complexity to the decade of releases before it, A Skeletal Domain is more breakneck and threatening and definitely cranks up the velocity, to the point that some of the quicker guitar licks in cuts like "Sadistic Embodiment" seem to harbor a blitz of Teutonic speed/thrash, something I can't recall picking out very often from their earlier material. Of course, a lot of this is due to the production, which is perhaps as polished and immaculate as any other point in their career, and allows for the rhythm guitars to carve up a more clinical slab of meat than on some of their past splatter-platters, but there is just a fraction of deviation from where they were at a few years ago, enough variation that it doesn't come across too redundant to my ears...but I admit some bias, since it's rare that I come away from anything this band releases with any semblance of disappointment. They have almost always proven damned good at what they do, and even if this isn't likely to be a favorite in their discography, it certainly didn't slip past the Q.C. division when the master was shipped off to press.

Expect all the hallmarks of the Cannibal Corpse sound: Alex Webster's judicious exhibition of finger strength weaving webs of bass-lines all over the fucking steel-shaving rhythm guitars, which are performed with such surgical precision this time around that half the time I thought I was listening to a more brutal Nevermore during the faster picked, thrash-like progressions, though the slower chugs totally punch the listener in and through the gut region in mid-paced sequences. They still do a lot of those atmosphere octave chord placements circa their later 90s work, and George Corpsegrinder's syllabic patterns are more or less par for the course, but I was happy that they also left some space here for some simpler riffs that border on the atmospheric, evil moments they hinted at with records like Gallery of Suicide and Bloodthirst. I feel like this album might also be a chance to put to rest the complaints about Paul's drumming...not that I understand what these were ever about, since he's usually been pretty good, but the man is hitting like a tornado here, and even if they're not the most technical band in terms of blasting, his kit at least makes you feel like your head is being battered around with a club.

The lyrics are good as usual, psalms of psychotic murder which don't deviate from the norm...the one thing is that they seem to have lost their luster for really funny/disturbing song titles.."High Velocity Impact Spatter" and "Headlong Into Carnage" are alright, but any sense of 'shock value' seems to have been left way behind in the mid 90s. But this isn't exactly news, nor is it necessarily a flaw that upon their 13th album, the subject matter has taken on a more workmanlike character due to the gradual jadedness of the audience (myself included). At the end of the day, while I was probably the least impressed here that I had been since The Wretched Spawn a decade past, I don't feel let down or like I've wasted my money in the slightest. There's not even an outside chance that this is really going to change the minds of those long exhausted with the Cannibal aesthetics, but taken at face value, which all albums really should be, it's a hell of a beatdown that will remain enjoyable for months.

Verdict: Win [8/10] (slaughtered are the weakest first)

http://www.cannibalcorpse.net/

Cannibal Corpse - Torture (2012)

There's a strange cycle I often see in metal press, especially reviews and promotions in which the stars will align and suddenly everyone will greet some new release with exclamations like 'This is the best (insert popular band name) album since (insert the name of some high profile cult classic)' or 'Finally, a return to form!', when in truth many of those same people were never paying attention to what was happening in the meantime, dismissing a lot of what might be great music they would have enjoyed in blissful, willful ignorance. This is very often the case for a band who have an important lineup change at some point, probably the singer, and I feel it's true for the mighty Cannibal Corpse, who have endured enormous resistance on the brutal fishing rod since Corpsegrinder took over from the divisive Chris Barnes.

So it's no surprise that lately I've seen the new Corpse album Torture touted with such a huge swath of misinformed praise. It's the greatest thing they've written since The Bleeding! It's the first Cannibal Corpse album with George that doesn't suck! It's a return to the fundamentals that made them such a great band in the first place! Bullshit, maggots. It must be lovely to selectively ignore reality. Have you had excess wax in your ears all this time? Are squirrels storing acorns in there? Maybe you left those plugs in after that loud gig in 1996, and they've become ingrown? Now, I'm not trying to knock Torture. It's a fine record, and a lot of damned fun in the Cannibal Corpse tradition, but there is nothing here that wasn't already present on the last 5-6 albums and in fact the songs themselves don't hold the same level of intense thrills for me that I found on Evisceration Plague (2009), Gallery of Suicide (1998) or the incredible and unforgettable Bloodthirst which I hold up today as one of my favorite USDM albums to date.

Torture is business as usual, no doubt, but it just happens that the business of Cannibal Corpse is to beat the everliving shit of you, and considering the band's age relative to the many younger acts constantly sprouting up in the brutal death or old school niches, it's impressive that they are still capable of so much boundless energy. The rhythm section here is incredible, Paul Mazurkiewicz battering away like he were a 19 year old who just snorted some a few lines before hitting the studio, and Alex Webster's bass-lines are as thick, acrobatic and uncompromising as ever: basically the blueprint for the low-end adept who doesn't wish to be known for serving as mere support for the guitars. Barrett and O'Brien carve out about a million riffs on this thing: whether they be old school tremolo bursts, thrashing palm muted frenzies, zombie grooves or grinding hybrids of the three, there is always something happening, and Corpsegrinder's blunt and percussive delivery binds it all into a vortex of pummeling force.

The production is comparable to the last two albums, only mildly more bassy, rounded and down to earth, less cutting in the lead sequences. Pacing is superb, with a pair of blitz abominations up front ("Demented Aggression" and "Sarcophagic Frenzy") that lead into the neanderthal groove and swagger of "Scourge of Iron". Favorites for me are definitely "Followed Home then Killed" which has an amazing, surgical thrashing flow to its guitar progressions that is among the best the band have written in the past decade, or "The Strangulation Choir" which plays with a lot of spiking dynamics and a level of measured complexity that proves once again these guys are one of the better semi-technical outfits in the genre who never go quite overboard in any crass attempt to impress anyone. Other meaty, meandering matrices of mosh include "Intestinal Crank", "Crucifier Avenged", "Caged...Contorted" and the spurious, psycho finale "Rabid".

If anything, I hope this album will finally silence the doubters who have for years been criticizing the band as some sort of faceless, generic death metal band. For fuck's sake, Cannibal Corpse helped to create and mold the entire scene, so it's to their absolute credit that they've never really allowed it to outpace them. Torture is quality, and consistency, and possesses the same level of personality as KILL or Evisceration Plague or any of their great albums. A few of the songs here will easily make it into their set list and remain there for years to come. About the worst I could say for the album would be that it was 'more of the same', but that really only serves as a detriment when the 'same' is not about to break my neck and then make me lie paralyzed and helpless while it devours my wife, children, neighbors, and mailman. And that's good enough for me.

Verdict: Win [8.75/10] (rage is my release)

http://www.cannibalcorpse.net/

Cannibal Corpse - Bloodthirst (1999)

Bloodthirst is more than just the apex of one band's career, it is also one of the finest death metal recordings yet offered via the human race, or certainly one of the finest I am proud to have heard and own. Since acquiring George Corpsegrinder Fisher for the rather average Vile, they have been making leaps and bounds with each release. First, Gallery of Suicide showed their inevitable promise, a technical and bloodsoaked splatter of great songwriting and atmosphere which straddles both the local morgue and the necropoli of the ancient. What Bloodthirst does is chip away every flake of excess fat from the compositions, leaving behind only a bared skeleton of flawless and brutal execution, which simultaneously honors all the great death metal of yesterday (from the Floridian sect of Death and Morbid Angel to the European greats like Pestilence), and shows that the band can run with just about any of the modern day, come lately jazz trained spastic youth who have invaded death metal with virtuoso intentions and left behind little but unmemorable, arrogant tripe thus far.

Bloodthirst is fast and it is pissed, but most importantly, it's kind of album you can totally bang your head out to. Now, I'm an older guy, looking forward to such end of life triumphs as Viagra, checkers, more tea than I drink now, and finding my social security depleted thanks to bailouts and government entitlement programs; the kind of guy who might find it a little awkward to just break out headbanging his already strained neck. But even in writing this review, I have probably slipped at least three vertebrae from gyrating my spinal cord and planting my forehead against the nearest solid object (computer desk). The energy here is among the most have ever ventured, and it is the listener who reaps the gain. The album features what many will one day come to know as the 'best', if not the 'classic' lineup of the band, with Fisher on vocals, Jack Owen and shredder Pat O'Brien on the guitars, Alex Webster ruling the bottom end, and the veteran skinner Paul Mazurkiewics, and each is at the very top of his career. But this is not some over-indulgent display of axe wankery, it is a force against nature which clearly has designs on the life of every human being breathing our atmosphere.

"Pounded Into Dust" is essentially the best way to describe me upon completion of a Bloodthirst listening, and yet it is presented up front as a dire warning to any who may continue into its curving, hammering depths. As usual, Cannibal Corpse are not ashamed to wear their thrashing influence on their bloodstained sleeves; now I know, yeah, all death metal comes from thrash, but Corpse show a huge love for both the brutal and technical European elements of the Germanic bands to the aggression of US/Bay Area/Canadian speed/thrash ala Slayer, Possessed or Razor. You can hear this in nearly every rhythm in this song, but my favorite would have to be the escalating, bludgeoning guitar passage around :40 that then breaks into a trot. "Dead Human Collection" arrives like the sense of paranoid confusion one might evoke upon the discovery of some hideout or backroom full of bodies piled high, having been massacred in all manner of brutal means. It's a wall of chugging force that constantly evolves into an even more concrete affirmation that your end is due in short order. But even this deathgasm would not prepare me for "Unleashing the Bloodthirsty", which is a likely candidate for my favorite Cannibal Corpse track ever...from the winding, unforgettable pattern of grooving mutes that comprises the verse, to the psychotic bridge which recalls the atmosphere of the classic Consuming Impulse from Pestilence, only a little more busy.

Vengeance taking form
Endless hatred for the living
Plundering the world
Paroxysm of the damned
Rapture of their rage
Euphoria from butchery
A dark world will eclipse all life

One would think you could just pen this tune and call it a day, for it is really that good, and yet there are still eight fantastic compositions to come, beginning with the roving, cerebral sledgehammer riffing of "The Spine Splitter", with it's maniacal collapse into blanketing bass and tapping madness. "Ecstasy in Decay" features a riff so fucking menacing that you can't help but feel you have left the world of the living, and suddenly see everything with necrotic humours pumping into your eyes from the entropy of a rotting brain. Acrobatic, tumbling rhythms entertain you like an undead circus act while you wait for that inevitable, domain crushing intro riff to return...and thankfully it does, albeit mutated, progressing into even more grisly gymnastics. "Raped by the Beast" is fun and thrashing hard, with razor rhythms strung as tightly as a garotte around the next victim's neck, while "Coffinfeeder" transforms from a brickhouse bludgeoning bass to a dark, choppy rhythm that could probably put most lumber companies out of business. The frenzy of clinical sounding, operating table mayhem that later erupts is some of the best you've heard post-Carcass.

"Hacksaw Decapitation" opens in distorted feedback, slowly swelling to inglorious capacities before the tunneling rhythm guitar erupts after about 70 seconds, straight into another hack and slash rhythm that almost teases you into thinking it will be boring before the band trades off into a creepy riff that covers you in arterial spray. "Blowtorch Slaughter" is a flippant, ferocious thrash off which grinds more pavement than a fleet of 18-wheelers piloted by zombie truckers. The rhythms transmit a very simple aesthetic: die, and when they get to the four on the floor thrash breakdown and then the seceding chug-a-long, you are in fact, dead. "Sicking Metamorphosis" crawls forward with another of the band's sluggish, mad scientist rhythms, you can simply close your eyes to picture the horrific experimentation the band was dreaming up with the narrative of these riffs, and the later melody builds a brutal and complex pace to the guitars which later morphs into even more vulgar lab results. The final track, "Condemned to Agony", is another island in a see of flawless, painful, violent joy, with freakish melodies that play to the thrashing verse guitar as Fisher's throat opens up, and then waves of psychosis that strike at you like a leeching abomination before Cannibal Corpse decide, for the last time, to pummel your fucking world down about you with an instant pit mayhem type of riff at around 1:30.

With the victims of his knife, he is now beset
Reliving every crime
Condemned to agony
No escape from their hate

More than 10 years may have passed since the arrival of Bloodthirst, but it remains, in my opinion, the crowning achievement of this band, holding all the right cards for the perfect balance of their styles both old and new. It's complex, it's forceful and it is a seriously kick ass way to acclimate yourself to the world about you for 34 minutes. There are hundreds, if not thousands of death metal albums I have enjoyed in my time since the genre was birthed, but few that I will immediately grasp off the shelf for a fast and reliable fix sure to sate my dementia for a crushing, heavy sound that satisfies both in attitude and quality. Bloodthirst is one of them. I don't know what stars aligned in the sick world of the Corpse crew to compose this, but I hope that anomaly happens some time again in my lifetime. Later albums like Kill and Evisceration Plague actually come quite close to this one in terms of their quality, and have arguably more energy and production standards, but this is the true turning point at which a band that had been hyped through the ceiling (and granted, they had some great albums already like Tomb of the Mutilated, The Bleeding or Gallery of Suicide) suddenly was in full control of deserving such praise.

Cannibal Corpse has often been a target of death metal's detractors, because of their willingness to embrace the fantastical gore and murder of their creations as an art form. Ignorami will always single them out because of their higher visibility, and their popularity and success has even forced a segment of the underground who once worshiped them into a bunch of thumbsucking curmudgeons. Guess what? They are all wrong. Here is your lucky number #7, your living...err...undying (?) proof that they are one of the best death metal has to offer. Now bang that fucking head until you go all sleepytime.

Highlights: modern science has advanced enough medical technology that you will probably survive this. That is, if you want to.

Verdict: Epic Win [10/10] (starvation of eons sated tonight)

http://www.cannibalcorpse.net/

Cannibal Corpse - KILL (2006)

The Wretched Spawn barely scraped by on 'good manners', but such would not be the fate of its followup KILL. The rather minimal title and cover art of the band's 10th album anniversary could not be further contradictory to the wealth of its contents, a savage and refreshing beating which features as many tracks as the predecessor, only this time...most of them are great. Yes, the writing may not stray far from the band's tried and true appetite for destruction, but it almost feels as if a fresh coat of blood has been spattered across their weary joints, a renewed haze of violent fervor applied to their sights. Perhaps it was the fact that Jack Owen had grown tired and decided to move onto other things, with the Corpse bringing back Rob Barrett to the fold to hack and thrash alongside their now resident axe guru Pat O'Brien. Perhaps they just went back to examine what made their previous works like Bloodthirst so eminent in a field of wannabes who
could score nothing but brutality.

Regardless, I'd like to give KILL an alternate title, Bloodthirst II: The Harder They Fall, because it possesses all the strength of that phenomenal effort and cranks up the biting crunch of the guitars to a thrashing guillotine level of force, I meant the level of abuse this album dishes out should certainly provoke a lawsuit from any sane listener, but then, we're probably not so sane after all. "The Time to Kill is Now" is like an injection of Razor's raw thrash (we know C. Corpse are fans after their "Behind Bars" cover) into the concrete sledgehammer of brutality we have come to expect, with action ready, frenetic riffs that define the word momentum. "Make Them Suffer" briefly grinds at a slower slog before the band once again erupts into death/thrash carnage, and "Murder Worship" weaves its grisly arching melodies over a pure classic Corpse pit annihilation, after which a forceful blast awaits to loop you back around over Webster's inflammatory fingering.

Hate rips through flesh and bone
The dogma states that it must be done
We adhere to the holy text
More must die if we are to advance

After this, "Necrosadistic Warning" scours the field, one of my personal favorites of the album, with the bustling bass lines and cavorting, winding muted guitar rhythms which tease at you in their unrest, too casually floating forward into momentous tanking riffs that flatten you into the pavement. "Five Nails Through the Neck" is another, similar tune which maintains the pace, building into a nice rise and fun chuggernaut. "Purification Through Fire" opens with a flailing, bleeding melody that transforms into one of the sickest, searing riffs in the entire Cannibal Corpse discography, leads crashing all over the morgue as the furnace is lit. "Death Walking Terror" is a short but sweet pit pummel glazed in old school trashing gooiness between the clinical rhythms and sadistic grooving. "Barbaric Bludgeonings" is just a band being honest, while they fist every orifice of your being simultaneously with meaty knuckles of brutality.

"The Discipline of Revenge" has a fantastic lead-in with Webster's spastic playing laden in more of the band's surgical melody, and the "Brain Removal Police" deserve credit for not only their killer song title, but the tech decimation contained within, a two-fisted thrashing dynamo that bristles to the brim with frenzied intent. By the time "Maniacal" rolls in, you almost feel a sense of redundancy in the consistent bludgeoning this album commits, and as a result this and "Submerged in Boiling Flesh" are probably the least impressive tracks, though they offer no end to the killing spree. Instead, it is the sluggish and creepy instrumental "Infinite Misery" which crowns off yet another string of murders for America's pride and glory predators, a nice outro in which you are given a few moments to gather your thoughts.

I hate to say it, but KILL is almost too much of a...killing, to sit through in one take. Of the 13 tracks, you really only need 10-11 to deliver the point across, and yet the additional takes don't diminish the value by any logical extent. This is really one of the very best of the Corpse albums, proving the band still has the chops nearly 20 years into their career. The punctual proficiency of the band is at an all time height, with Alex Webster everywhere and a rigid performance from the newly paired O'Brien and Barrett. Fisher sounds like he is enjoying himself, with a solid set of lyrics and vocal patterns, though nothing standing out too far from the musical delivery. This is not only a great Cannibal Corpse effort, it's a great death metal album worth owning, whether you are a long time fan or some silly skeptic who hates popular bands (that have lost none of their spunk), or some backwards moron who shies away from post-Barnes releases from this band, afraid to crawl forth from pitiful denial. Spend the money, and get your neck snapping.

Highlights: The Time to Kill is Now, Make Them Suffer, Necrosadistic Warning, Purification Through Fire, Brain Removal Police

Verdict: Win [8.75/10] (savour the vile abundance)

http://www.cannibalcorpse.net/

Cannibal Corpse - The Wretched Spawn (2004)

After the somewhat average debut of George Corpsegrinder in the vocal chair on Vile, Cannibal Corpse had been on a tear through the next 7-8 years, producing the excellent albums like Gallery of Suicide, Gore Obsessed and the mindblowing awesome that was Bloodthirst. The Wretched Spawn is their 9th full-length, and though it doesn't really live up to the previous three albums in terms of quality, one can forgive on grounds that it would be simply too much to string together another joyous maggotpile so soon. No, The Wretched Spawn is not the best of the last crop of Cannibal Corpse records, but it's speed and brutality are notable for carrying forward the tech style of the post-Barnes era and almost trying to one-up the prior albums in sheer speed and aggression.

Yes, The Wretched Spawn moves along at about 100mph as it bludgeons through the opening numbers "Severed Head Stoning" (one of the most forgettable pieces on the album) and then the mute fest gone squealing "Psychotic Precision", which at least offers a few flighty brain hammering rhythms before it erodes into an all too familiar groove which we feel like we've heard from the band a half dozen times before. "Decency Defied" is a solid tune with meatgrinder thrashing rhythms, but it never goes over the top where it needs to be; and "Frantic Disembowlment", while quite true to its energetic evisceration implicit to its title, likewise feels as if it were another exercise in frivolity. "The Wretched Spawn" has a certain lopsided groove to its churn and chugging, with a slower palm mute/squeal verse that gathers speed like a skull rolling down a heap of dead, but it never quite delivers. On the flipside, “Cyanide Assassin” is a rousing frenzy mostly remarkable for its loopy bridge tapping (and the excellent bass accompaniment).

Shocking news traveled fast
But I have traveled faster
The only clue that’s left behind
Poison in the cadaver

“Festering in the Crypt” is coiled about a churning groove which creeps like decay across the skin of a corpse, stiffening and then dissoluting as the worms spew forth from its sockets. It doesn’t develop into anything interesting, but at least provides a nice shift in pace from the prior tracks. “Nothing Left to Mutilate” stands out slightly for its insanely hammered drumming, like an automated butcher block, and “Blunt Force Castration” offers us a mental image which is far from pleasant…though some of the acrobatic riffing here did graze my attention span. I did enjoy the rolling force that inaugurated “Rotted Body Landslide”, as once again Webster proves he is worth his weight in the fingernails of other death metal bassists…and that is a LOT of fingernails. “Slain” is good old Cannibal Corpse ala The Bleeding style rhythms, and ditto for the more chaotic “Bent Backwards and Broken”. Closer “They Deserve to Die” is another bludgeon which batters you over the head senselessly but really doesn’t conceive anything to make your beating the more memorable.

The Wretched Spawn certainly does not lack for effort, but I would consider the wealth of tracking here (13 in all) very much worth trading for 7-8 more interesting songs. As it stands, this is an album that falls under the descriptor ‘good’ without really granting the high replay value of a Gallery of Suicide or Bloodthirst. But the style is no shock, its prime Corpsegrinder era Corpse and at least a slight leg up on Vile. If you could care less for the nuance or subtlety of careful songwriting and just want another 45 minute sheer wall of death, with technicality and riffs galore (though few with any lasting hooks), then The Wretched Spawn still remains superior to many of the band’s impersonators, but I’d favor any of their other 21st century albums to this.

Highlights: Cyanide Assassin, Blunt Force Castration, Rotted Body Landslide

Verdict: Win [7/10] (from birth an urge)

http://www.cannibalcorpse.net/

Cannibal Corpse - Worm Infested EP (2003)

If you're going to record and offer an EP or single release to fans to pad your sales between full length albums, the least you can do is offer material that they don't already own in one form or the other. And with Worm Infested, the first Cannibal Corpse EP since the now useless Hammer Smashed Face 10 years prior, they have done exactly this. At over 22 minutes of music, Worm Infested offers two new studio tracks, three decent cover tunes, and a re-recording of "The Undead Will Feast" from the debut Eaten Back to Life, with Corpsegrinder's vocals in place of Barnes.

"Systematic Elimination" is the only track here to be redundant with the 15-Year Killing Spree boxed set to release later in the same year, but it's a competent bludgeon that capitalizes on the high velocity catapulting rhythms inherent on the last full-length album Gore Obsessed. Of special note are the brutal rhythm guitars beneath the wildly flailing leads. "Worm Infested" itself is not quite as good, but there's a lengthy scale pattern that weaves through the track, giving it a feel of Middle Eastern mystique ala Nile. Next is a cover of "Demon's Night" ala Accept, from the Restless and Wild album, and as usual, they do a good job transforming into something of their own which wouldn't sound completely out of place in a set list among their more brutal originals.

"The Undead Will Feast" isn't a far cry greater than the original version with Barnes' vocals, but I do prefer Fisher in the end and the mix feels more brutal and up to date with the 21st century Cannibal repertoire. "Confessions" is the band's 2nd Possessed cover, having done "The Exorcist" a decade past on their Hammer Smashed Face EP. It seems Fisher attempts to make the vocals too close to Becera's original, I might have preferred his grunting tone here, but otherwise it sounds exciting and solid. The last track on the EP is a cover of Metallica's "No Remorse", which rocks as hard as it ought, and like the Accept tune, they again make it their own.

Worm Infested was a decent tide-over until The Wretched Spawn released in 2004, and not a bad listen, confirming that 2003 was the year of the Cannibal Corpse cover (the 3 covers at the end of Disc 3 of 15-Year Killing Spree were also that release's strong point). As for the originals, "Systematic Elimination" is quite good and very similar to the material for the next album. The Accept and Metallica covers are also worth hearing, but the overall value of this release is simply not in league with the previous albums like Bloodthirst or Gore Obsessed.

Verdict: Indifference [6/10] (value of horrors instilled)

http://www.cannibalcorpse.net/

Cannibal Corpse - 15 Year Killing Spree (2003)

15 Year Killing Spree is a large fan package put together well into Cannibal Corpse's career as a vehicle to release some material that has not previously been available to their mass legions of fans. I would tell you that no expense was spared on this, as it has great packaging, new artwork, guitar pick, a poster, a comic, 3 audio discs, some booklets, and a DVD, but in truth, the first two discs are comprised of previously available material and this severely cripples the value in my opinion. Still, if you have an opportunity to acquire this cheaply, it is worth it for the third disc, which features some songs you may not have heard, or at least some alternate takes on tracks that you have.

First, of course, come the compilation discs, which offer a slew of tracks from their first eight albums (from Eaten Back to Life to Gore Obsessed) and the Worm Infested EP, with a few live cuts thrown in the mix rather than their studio counterparts. The track list is largely predictable, but I was rather relieved at the inclusion of some of their less 'staple' and amazing tunes, like "The Cryptic Stench", "Disfigured" and "Sanded Faceless". The live versions included are "I Cum Blood", "Fucked With a Knife", "Unleashing the Bloodthirsty" and "Meathook Sodomy". The cover of Black Sabbath's "Zero the Hero" from the Hammer Smashed Face EP is also present. Though the discs contain 32 tracks, there is truly a pervasive sense of redundancy, for most Cannibal Corpse fans with the devotion to purchase this product already have all of the albums they have been drawn from...and it does feel like a waste of space. But for the sense of completion, I'm not sure what else they could have included in the package. More live work? Cannibal Corpse is not a band with a boatload of rare material to spare, most of what they write is good enough to make it to the studio albums.

This is where Disc 3 comes in...the most worthwhile of the lot. It begins with the entire 1989 demo, which is pretty rare these days, so any fan without a legitimate copy of the cassette could now claim to have their meathooks on the material. The tracks from hte demo are "Skull Full of Maggots", "The Undead Will Feast", "Scattered Remains, Splattered Brains", "Put Them to Death", and "Bloody Chunks", all of which sound more raw than the debut album, and vocals which border more on thrash/crossover in places than death, though the growls still appear. I prefer the album versions myself, but at least this is interesting to hear. The next seven tracks provide another treat, as they are the original Created to Kill sessions, basically the demo tracks done for the Vile album, with Chris Barnes on the vocals! So if you ever wanted to hear that material with the original singer before his departure, you have "Unburied Horror", "Mummified in Barbed Wire", "Gallery of the Obscene", "To Kill Myself", "Bloodlands", "Puncture Wound Massacre" and "Devoured by Vermin", some of which wound up on the full-length with George Fisher's vocals, some getting a name change (for example, "Gallery of the Obscene" becomes "Orgasm Through Torture"). The demo sessions for Gallery of Suicide are also included: "Chambers of Blood", "Dismembered and Molested", "Gallery of Suicide", "Unite the Dead", "Crushing the Despised", and "Headless", and while this is also nice to have for the completist, the final versions on the album are superior in all cases.

Rounding out this disc of bonus material are a trio of covers, which are honestly the best material in this entire collection. First is the treatment of "Bethany Home (A Place to Die)" from the 1987 More Fun Than an Open Funeral Casket from Seattle splatter pioneers The Accüsed. Fun song, a fun version, and well worth a few scene points. Next is Kreator's classic "Endless Pain", which is given a brutal delivery here that completely kicks ass, with Fisher going ape wild on the vocals and the guitars thrusting away like Mille and crew simply weren't capable of due to the original production value. But the best of the three is the Cannibalized "Behind Bars", covered from Razor's excellent 1988 album Violent Restitution. It is almost always fantastic when a successful band does proper justice to a lesser known influence, and in this case justice is served, no pun intended. It sounds so good that you wonder if Cannibal Corpse really wrote the song in the first place. In general, these three tracks are the real treat of the release, and had they been issued on a full-fledged album of covers, the value would be far greater.

Disc 4 is a DVD with live footage from four sources: their first gig in 1989; studio takes from the Butchered at Birth sessions in 1991; Cannibal Corpse Eats Moscow Alive in 1993; and lastly, from a live performance at The Palace in Hollywood, in 2002. In my opinion the footage from their debut gig is the most interesting, but the footage of the band in the studio during their formative years might also please fans. Their live performances are much like any you may have seen in person, but if you haven't had the chance, you can know check it out on your widescreen TV.

I can't completely recommend this release because so much of it is redundant to what you've already listened to, but if you are a death metal collector who wants the complete spread of Corpse's work, it allows you to gather some of their rarer pieces in one place. This is not so easy to find these days, and I certainly do not advise anyone to spend some ridiculous amount of money on it. Cannibal Corpse hooked up the box with a lot of extras, but unless you're some fanatic fanboy or fangirl who actually salivates over a band's poster or guitar pick, you're not going to derive a lot of value from these contents. As a compilation from this band was inevitable, I'd have to say they did a fair job at putting it together. I simply would have preferred a lot more rare or unreleased material, maybe some exclusive new tracks, etc. But it was not to be...and today I only visit this boxed set for the three cover songs I don't have elsewhere.

Verdict: Indifference [5/10]

http://www.cannibalcorpse.net/

Cannibal Corpse - Live Cannibalism (2000)

Whilst many artists blow their live load early, in order to scrape together as much extra cash as they can from their fans, or fill out a label contract when the new, original material is not forthcoming, Cannibal Corpse actually had the decency to wait over a decade and seven albums before offering their own. Recorded during two Midwest US gigs in the good ol' Y2K (at the Emerson Theater in Indianapolis and the Rave in Milwaukee), Live Cannibalism features over an hour of music across 18 tracks that mines their entire backlog for material. This is a superb soundboard recording, and listening to it only increases my appreciation for this band and their songwriting, because this is quite a lot to pull off live as accurately as they do here. Having seen the band live on at least a half dozen occasions, I can attest to the generally tight setlist and the band's demand for a good sound.

As far as the tracklist, it's fairly comprehensive and includes most of the band's more popular work up to this point. This is not 100% pleasing to my ears, since a lot of my favorite tunes from the earlier efforts do not coincide with the fanbase at large, nor the band themselves. Here we get "A Skull Full of Maggots" from the Eaten Back to Life debut; "Meat Hook Sodomy", "Gutted", and "Covered With Sores" from Butchered at Birth; all of which sound a little brighter and better than on their source albums, which I find pretty average. Tomb of the Mutilated is represented rather weakly with the staple "Hammer Smashed Face" and "I Cum Blood" (so many better songs that didn't make it), and The Bleeding with the expected "Staring Through the Eyes of the Dead", "Fucked with a Knife" and "Stripped, Raped and Strangled". Vile gets "Devoured by Vermin" and "Perverse Suffering", again not the better songs from that album. But most important to me are the selections from their more recent records at the time of this live's release. Gallery of Suicide is represented through its title track, "Disposal of the Body" and "I Will Kill You", though surprisingly no "Sentenced to Burn". These tracks all sound great, as do the masterful Bloodthirst proxies "Unleashing the Bloodthirsty", "Blowtorch Slaughter", "The Spine Splitter" and the staggering "Dead Human Collection".

There's not a whole lot of impetus to listen to much of Live Cannibalism over the studio versions, with the exception of the staples from the first two albums which sound far more brazen and fit in well with the more recent material. Most of these tracks are featured in almost every set list the band performs, which is almost sad, when you consider all the great material they have floundering away on those middle albums. The sound is right, and if you don't have the opportunity to see them on stage, it's the next best thing if you actually feel the need to spend money on it. As far as banter between tracks, there is not a lot here, and George is usually more fun in person. If you should see him, tell him he needs to roll a gnome. Live Cannibalism is not one of the better live albums I own, but it's decent enough to pick up at a bargain rate. If you seek more than just the audio component, there was also a VHS release of the live performances which seems more or less like any show I've seen them at.

Verdict: Indifference [6.5/10]

http://www.cannibalcorpse.net/

Cannibal Corpse - Vile (1996)

After parting ways with Chris Barnes, Cannibal Corpse sought out and found a more than capable replacement in George 'Corpsegrinder' Fisher, who had previously fronted Monstrosity for their first two albums, not to mention his own, self-titled project. The immediate difference between the two styles is that Barnes operated on a 'growl cop, snarl cop' routine, where he would generally offer his blunt dictation and then switch up to a different 'character', the snarling and bestial sort of vocal that sounded quite silly emanating from his particular throat. You could say it was the Carcass method. Fisher, on the other hand, travels between the two styles in a single breath, with a voice slightly higher pitched, and less gruff than Barnes, but a wilder energy that sounds superior when paired against the lyrics.

I realize it might seem silly to compare death metal grunters, but you have to know these things in my line of...hobby. At any rate, I immediately took to Fisher's style moreso than I had ever had for Barnes, though the former frontman had his moments (certainly he was great on The Bleeding). Unfortunately, while Fisher's performance was more than adequate for his debut with these brutes, the music here feels a little mired and mixed. It's a solid offering, and a great setup for their following work (the excellent Gallery of Suicide and the flawless Bloodthirst). I'd even go so far as to say that this was the same raw creative matter, later given flesh, and though I enjoy only a few songs in retrospect, it does form a natural bridge between where the band was at 2 years prior and the glorious, gorebound future that lay before them. Gorebound. Is that a band? I guess it's only a matter of time now.

Another important detail when looking back on Vile is that it was the first death metal album to ever debut on the Billboard charts. Of course, this is more a testament to the fact that band's sell albums on name alone, since Vile is nowhere near the most deserving of Corpse's albums to achieve such a level of success, and even with all the promotional power of their touring, cover art & lyrical controversy, it was still pretty low in the ranks, sad proof that death metal (and real metal in general) were truly niche in an era dominated by confused shoegazing grunge rock and piss poor radio friendly pop punk.

It's a little complicated to figure out why exactly I did not explode over this album, as it carries forward the technical prowess of The Bleeding with a better vocalist to match the band's progression, but I must chalk it up to a simple lack of connection between most of the frenetic riffs and the synapses in my brain bred to accept its brutal impulses. "Devoured by Vermin" is a frenzy of guitar work which pummels by at the speed of a cadre of the titular rodents fleeing a sinking vessel, thus transforming into a low down dirty mosh fest and some intense, if brief, solos. "Mummified in Barbed Wire" benefits from not only a killer title, but some frantic choppy rhythms which sound like a ginsu chef hacking away at his meats and fish while simultaneously sniffing coke and popping tabs. Still, the breakdowns within this song do little for me, simply passing from one flurry of barbarous axe acrobatics to the next. "Perverse Suffering" is simply dull, though it explodes through a churning vortex of aggravated assault, none of the riffs really stick. Not so for "Disfigured", which has a great tech-death-thrash rhythm highly reminiscent of the first Pestilence record Malleus Maleficarum, and in the end stands as one of the better songs here.

A straight razor will reshape my face
First my ears then my nose
Blood is gushing continue to carve
Erase the face I hate

"Bloodlands" smashes forward like a bloated, undead killing machine, by which I mean it's slow and extremely groovy, deconstructing the band's faster rhythmic action to a crawl, with some interesting results. "Puncture Wound Massacre" and "Relentless Beating" both scream past with some meat-headed thrashing riffs that should please an advocate for shear speed, but neither really sticks past the first listen, with the possible exception of the intense guitar bridgework in "Beating". I did rather enjoy "Absolute Hatred" with its concrete and clinical riffing, melodic misanthropy morphing into a start/stop onslaught in the center of the song before the wild leads erupt over a great, thrashing foundation.

"Eaten from Inside" is another of the album's pleasures, gunning for an early lead which transforms from alien mystique to shrill noodling, prior to the verse rhythm pulling a grooving low end trill that would make Bleeding fans proud. The middle of the track does border on dull, but it comes around to another great lead/rhythm before 2:30. "Orgasm Through Torture" opens with an interesting melodic pattern that continues on through the verse, but gradually bludgeons itself into mediocrity. Vile's grand finale, "Monolith", adds no insult to injury, but it too suffers from a mix of brilliant, frenetic riffing and less inspired filler.

Considering how close this album is in tone to its successors, it strikes me that even now I can not listen back and develop a serious appreciation. There are 3-4 great modern Cannibal Corpse tunes here that would make an extended playlist rotation on my iPod, and the rest I'd simply consign to an eternity of sparse visitation, like that creepy aunt your family shackled upstate in that mental health facility. You might break this record out for a rare spin, like visiting her on holiday with a fruit basket that her orderlies will probably steal and devour, but you will never want her back in your life full-time. And I feel that way about much of this 5th fateful album. But at least it brought them some limited financial success, and forged the path for Gallery of Suicide, which truly ups the ante for this long lauded band.

Highlights: Disfigured, Absolute Hatred, Eaten from Inside

Verdict: Indifference [6.75/10] (tissue is torn away)

http://www.cannibalcorpse.net/

Cannibal Corpse - The Bleeding (1994)

The Bleeding was the 4th album from Cannibal Corpse, and a rather pivotal point in their career, as their cover art and lyrics were creating controversy around the band. In fact, most people would not even recognize the real cover art for this album, since it was censored and Metal Blade was forced to release an extremely dull alternative. This was also a time for change in the cannibal camp, as guitarist Rob Barrett (Solstice, Malevolent Creation) took over the spot left open by Bob Rusay. It is the last album for Chris Barnes, who would soon be booted from the band, causing a foolish rift between stubborn fans who somehow believed that, because they hired a superior vocalist and (eventually) wrote better music, were no longer their precious little antisocial house band.

But for The Bleeding itself, one will be satisfied that the band have not relapsed into the boring efforts of their first few years, but have continued the path of quality brutality that began with its predecessor Tomb of the Mutilated. There are riffs on this album that are pure gold, and then there are those in between which do little but propel you forward into their betters. The mix does not feel so razor fine as the previous album, there is a much more weighted, bludgeoning tone, like the band decided to shift from the chainsaw to the ballpeen hammer as their choice weapon for clobbering fans and foes alike. Barrett and Owen are as tight as a pair of testicles in a vice, and this album is the best yet in terms of its guitar output, with busy, technical rhythms simmering over the low end hammering of Alex Webster, who is arguably the best bass player in death metal.

"Staring Through the Eyes of the Dead" is a solid tune which exhibits the guitars' flair for wavering patterns that create a tremolo-like effect, a low end trilling morass that always stands out among the palm muting corpsescape. Cannibal were certainly not the first band to practice such a technique, but their constant use of it to craft catchy moments into their songs would translate into a million impersonator bands, who are even today trying to come up with the perfect re-write to this very album. "Fucked With a Knife", now one of the band's live staples, is like a thrashing outbreak of cholera, passing form one unkempt metal freak to the next with the symptoms of gastrointestinal unrest and headbanging frenzy. It is customary for George to dedicate this one 'to the ladies' at live performances, and I'll never forget the time he was pointing at my own (ex) from the stage, terrifying her. Ditto for "Stripped, Raped and Strangled", which opens like an axe felling a tree and warps into another of the band's excellent guitar trills, this time followed by Webster's bass. This song serves as something akin to an anthem, because the verse is hard rocking and defiant and the payoff is like having concrete poured into your chest cavity and then battered into the pavement.

I come alive in the darkness
Left murdered and nameless
Dead unburied and rotten
Half eaten by insects

"Pulverized" is frenetic and fun, though it may not leave quite the impression of its fellows, whereas the creeping horror of "Return to Flesh" offers a more memorable distinction. The ability to plod forward while the guitars emit streams of paranoid horror is one of the true core strengths of Cannibal Corpse, one they would carry forward onto their superb albums like Bloodthirst. The full band commits on this track, include Barnes in one of his better performances. The way it plays with your instincts, ranging from barbaric to almost clinical, creates a grisly narrative within its borders, and "Return to Flesh" is indeed one of the band's best and most underrated songs. "The Pick-Axe Murders" follows with a dense, thrashing rhythm, and when it unleashes into blinding speed over the extended bridge, Barnes alternates between his decent grunt voice and rather annoying snarls. "She Was Asking for It" uses a pair of percussive guitar rhythms, one of chords and the other of screaming higher notes, to build a velocity over Webster's pumping, excellent bass line, before the whole track twists into a brickhouse groove in the verse. This is yet another of those great C.C. tracks that you don't hear much about, in particular the excellent breakdown at about 3:00.

Black, the blood of the dead
I wrapped my hands around her neck
Squeezing out her breath
Eyes rolled back in her head

So, Cannibal Corpse were definitely not out to make nice with any friends of the finer sex, much less any feminist organization. But as usual with death metal, you need to take the lyrics with a grain of salt, since they are purely fictional representations of violent impulses that mirror the nihilism and extremity of the music, a poetry of the dispossessed and fallen. "The Bleeding" offers charnel grooves and a woven mystique through the subtle lead melodies that hang at the edge of perception, until it explodes with surgical mass genocide through its bridge, a series of curving and eerie palpitations that were sure to please the tech death fan of the day. "Force Fed Broken Glass" is likewise incredibly, with an intense battery of guitar riffs and basslines that rise above and beyond the call of duty for the average death metal band. The breakdown into the verse loses a little steam, but it is recaptured through the spooked old school death rhythm of the bridge. "An Experiment in Homicide" is another qualified slaughter, with more mesmerizing bass that recalls a sped-up Pestilence when it races below the disturbing chords at around :30. No surprise that this, too, is one of the best tracks of the Barnes years.

The Bleeding was the end of an era, and although it was the swan song for Barnes, he left us with a positive impression here (though the snarls could be weak at times). It is a credit to this album that, despite its age, it still sounds fresh and inventive even by 2010 standards, and that's having been copied a countless number of times. The formula worked, and it's the same formula Cannibal Corpse is still using today: tight, technical songs that balance a mosh pit aesthetic with blistering spurts of jugular blood, delivered through a near endless reservoir of memorable riffs. I actually enjoy this album more today than I did when it released, though there are 2-3 songs here that I could live without and so it's a ways from perfect. As the best Chris Barnes fronted death metal album in history, it deserves a listen and a spot on the meat rack of any young masochist.

Highlights: Fucked With a Knife, Return to Flesh, She Was Asking for It, An Experiment in Homicide

Verdict: Win [8.25/10] (more are marked for murder)

http://www.cannibalcorpse.net/

Cannibal Corpse - Hammer Smashed Face EP (1993)

Sweet, sweet, capitalism, oh what you have done for the music industry, spewing galactic megatons of wasted matter into our environment that does naught but poison us and our surroundings. I picture a grim future where entire 3rd world nations are transformed into massive graveyards of CD singles, cassettes, picture discs, vinyl, VHS tapes, and so forth, all whisked into existence so the record label executives (and often the artists) can eat a fatter meal at a higher star restaurant. With Cannibal Corpse's emerging success in the 90s, it was inevitable that they would also be taken (or taking us) to the cleaners. I'll give them some credit though, any glance at their discography reveals only a few singles, and this early Hammer Smashed Face EP, which has since been rendered completely worthless.

"Hammer Smashed Face" is the same track you heard opening the Tomb of the Mutilated album one year previous to this, and though it's a decent one with a pounding rhythm and fairly 'tame' level of gore, it feels only redundant on a release with only 3 tracks (5 if you've got the alternate version with two other re-pressings). The remainder of this EP consists of two cover tracks, and likely the only draw for fans at the time who wanted to kick a few more dollars into the ditch these zombies crawled out from. "The Exorcist" seems a natural fit for the grisly New York barbarians, as Possessed was no doubt a formative influence on their decision to even play this style of metal. Chris Barnes bludgeons out the vocals, and the music sounds as you might expect, with a thick bass presence and some nice guitar tones for the bridge before 1:00, evoking the morbid old school atmosphere of the original. "Zero the Hero" is a decent cover as well, hearing the brutal spin on Black Sabbath is entertaining, and the track gets the same room to breathe as its predecessor. I should also note that the stoney vibe is like an omen of the future of Chris Barnes, who in a few years would be out of this band and writing stoner horror death metal until his heart is content with the lackluster Six Feet Under.

As if to create some sort of micro-anthology on the EP, the alternate version also features "Shredded Humans" from Eaten Back to Life and "Meat Hook Sodomy" from Butchered at Birth, adding no real value to the release save to extend its length. The two cover songs mark the first release for the band as a 4-piece (which wouldn't last long); Bob Rusay originally recorded solos for them, but Jack Owen re-recorded them after Rusay left the band. Since "The Exorcist" is available on the 2006 re-release of The Bleeding, "Zero the Hero" is available on the 15 Year Killing Spree compilation, and both are redundant to several other releases (including the Japanese Tomb of the Mutilated), I can't give any sort of recommendation here. If this was your intro to Cannibal Corpse, you were better off picking up Tomb of the Mutilated, and this EP does nothing but gather dust and decay anywhere it lies.

Verdict: Fail [3.5/10] (crushing, cranial, contents)

http://www.cannibalcorpse.net/

Cannibal Corpse - Tomb of the Mutilated (1992)

From the incredibly seductive cover artwork, to the stronger balance of the songwriting and a mix which slices and dices, Tomb of the Mutilated shows all the signs of a band who probably didn't like what they had to offer on their previous splatter platter, and took steps to ensure that #3 would be a charm. The riffs are tighter, in part because the guitar tone is the audio equivalent of a sharpened surgical tool parting skin and sinew directly down to the bone, and in part because they are simply better plotted. The breakdowns here are a lot more satisfying musically, and the once could even sense a slight increase in 'melody', though it's the kind of melody that makes you feel like you're in an emergency room late in the AM hours after trying to cut the pain out of your life one vein at a time.

I'm not about to praise its virtues to the high heavens, of which the members of Cannibal Corpse will surely not be allowed to partake, but this is far closer to the band that I know and love today. Tomb of the Mutilated features the same lineup as the previous two albums, but there is a far more noticeable presence here from Alex Webster, whose busy lines are anchoring the savage thrust of the guitars like a popping mortician's aid prepping the corpses for examination on the meat block. Barnes is pretty much as dull as ever, but his vocals benefit from their guttural counterbalance to the knife-like guitar rhythms, once again a plus to the production. Stylistically, not much different than their prior efforts. Just flat out superior...

Everyone knows "Hammer Smashed Face", and it delivers an opening rhythm worthy of the name, as the chords pound into you like an oncoming train. The breakdown at around :50 proves instantly that this band has arrived at an understanding of how NOT to bore you when its time to break out those palm mutes, with a sinister Slayer-like melody threading through them. "I Cum Blood" continues the band's knack for memorable song titles, and the track itself is a grinding surge with another neanderthal breakdown which is, admittedly, not one of the strongest on the album. "Addicted to Vaginal Skin" (and who isn't?) is sexy, with a fucked up cannibal sample and a truly surgical, ghastly lurching rhythm that rolls forward into brief bursts of splattered giblets, the guitars bursting out into a deep thrashing frenzy that will nearly decapitate the listener.

Even though now I'm dead within
My mouth drools
As I slice your perineum
My body smeared
With the guts I've extracted
through her hole, came swollen organs

Yes, it is utterly fucking disgusting. Yes, it's not the kind of thing you want to go repeating at parties, unless you have some really cool friends. And yet, for all the repressed serial killer perversions and desires, Cannibal Corpse would be the band that launched a million ships, or rather, other bands who clumsily ground against each other to see who could come up with the sickest, humorous song titles and lyrics. These gentlemen may not have been the first, but they were clearly the most influential, since they provided a gateway for many new metal fans not previously aware that the genre even existed until they happened upon a certain Jim Carrey film.

"Split Wide Open" continues to jab and thrust, the vorpal edge of each guitar line weighted with a concrete climax. "Necropedophile" must be like getting the best of both worlds, at least if you are a sick demented fuck who thinks of such ideas as anything more than ridiculous posteuring. I enjoyed the way the bass chords popped alongside the bridge riff, but it's not one of the stronger songs on the album. "The Cryptic Stench", however, sticks immediately with a massive, thrashing wall and some devastating, old school sensibilities. After all, it WAS the old school. A brutal and effective track that sadly doesn't get a lot of love in the band's set lists. Cannibal Corpse will next one up themselves yet again with the exploitative torture orgy "Entrails Ripped from a Virgin's Cunt", and "Post Mortal Ejaculation" sorties through another of the band's clinical riffs, putting the listener directly on the operating table at the local malpractice. "Beyond the Cemetery" is another of the band's criminally overlooked songs, with ripping guitars that pretty much terminate anything off the first two albums. Bloody and beautiful.

Tomb of the Mutilated falls just short of greatness, because a few songs slack behind the rest in terms of the writing. But it's the first 'good' Cannibal Corpse record, and deserves respect for refining the band's prior meddling into a force to be reckoned with. It's the warning siren of a lethal banding finally shifting into gear from park, and strangely foreshadows a lot of the excellent future albums the band will write with George Corpsegrinder in the fold. Today it sounds nearly as livid and razor sharp as it did when the vein was first tapped 18 years past.

Highlights: Addicted to Vaginal Skin, The Cryptic Stench, Post Mortal Ejaculation, Beyond the Cemetery

Verdict: Win [7.75/10] (I bleed the blood of the dead)

http://www.cannibalcorpse.net/

Cannibal Corpse - Butchered at Birth (1991)

And so the masters of carnage sought to surpass themselves in the category of butcher block, and so they did succeed...more or less, in digging for a deeper, darker tone and penning an even more repulsive set of lyrics to shock the death metal aspirant, who at the time was still trying to contend with the fact that his beloved thrash metal had been mutated into such a monstrosity, sweeping the country and the world in a haze of nihilistic, grotesque orgies. The problem is, Cannibal Corpse managed to write an album here that, while surpassing Eaten Back to Life in extremity, is somehow even more boring in retrospect, with very few riffs of note that I would ever specifically seek out for any fix. This is truly one of those records you will remember simply for its sickness and disdain for the vitality of life, and never really for anything bordering on musical merit, unless the only merit you seek is the chugging groove of bland USDM.

I'm afraid "Meat Hook Sodomy" is little more than a pretty name; because once you've gotten past the wall of guitar noises that introduce it, there is nothing more than a frenetic but uninteresting riff that swerves into a dull chug-a-long. At around 3:00, a Death-like, old school rhythm erupts, but the note pattern is simply not that interesting. "Gutted" struts along with another chugging rhythm that is nigh indistinguishable from many others the same band has written, not to mention the dozens of would-be's that were releasing albums at the time. "Living Dissection" is all too redundant, with yet another chug-chug-chug-chug-chug-chug that morphs into a half-decent, if forgettable old school rhythm. I'm probably giving the impression that I have some beef with the palm mute in metal, which is totally not the case, it's just too often that I hear this type of breakdown riff executed without any sense of taste or catchy rhythm, and these early Cannibal Corpse albums are some of the original culprits to spawn a gajillion lifeless copies that seem to believe that simply chugging and down-tuning a guitar makes an album automatically heavy. There is nothing heavy about being bored.

Reflections of things to come, mirrored in the dead
one's eyes my fantasy of murder
Incarnated open wounds gushing, blood on skin
coagulated tortured of the retched

And so this pattern continues through a great deal of the remaining six tracks. "Under the Rotted Flesh" weaves a morbid atmosphere through some creepy riffs akin to Obituary, but it builds up to nothing, there is just no payoff aside from a few more typical bottom feeding riffs that lead into an exploding lead. "Covered With Sores" opens in a dull, bluesy death groove but soon transforms into the same slushy sort of spastic rhythm that occupied "Meat Hook Sodomy". "Vomit the Soul" has a great title, but more of those faceless riffs get lost in the shuffle and are difficult to discern from so many others. The title track is a little more technical and punchy, but by the "Rancid Amputation" arrives, I'm nearly falling asleep since it seems unlikely there will be anything of note to round off this album. "Innards Decay" strives to prove this statement false, and granted it's a lot better than most tracks on the album, with a killer warlike chug at :30 that again recalls Obituary, and a finale which borders on crawling death/doom.

Listening to Butchered at Birth is something like staring at a wall, or a zen rock garden. You seek a deeper pattern of meaning or enlightenment through its architecture, but whatever the stone or brick or branch reveals, this album does not. It's a pedestrian brutal bludgeoning effort which accomplishes little more than to reflect the callous indiscretion of a moldering corpse, the bleak face of death unflinching as the 5 men from Buffalo play around in your guts and organs, stopping to take a bite here or there if they think you will be tasty. Is it terrible? No. And neither is it important, especially from a band like this who clearly has what it takes, and will prove this in the latter half of their discography.

Highlights: waiting for the bonesaw to descend and cut you free from this ennui.

Verdict: Indifference [6/10] (beginning to clot)

http://www.cannibalcorpse.net/