Cannibal Corpse is the bestselling death metal band of all
time. And when I say death metal, I mean covering all of its subgenres (melodic
death, technical death, deathcore, black death, etc.). And yet even though the
sale of their CDs has been banned in several countries (it used to be more though)
and in several major record stores, they’ve still managed to become one of the
top dogs in death metal with The Black Dahlia Murder, Death, Arch Enemy, Opeth,
Suffocation, and Morbid Angel. Cannibal Corpse’s most appreciated and
well-known albums are Butchered at Birth, Kill, and Tomb of the Mutilated
(which is my favorite album by them).
Now ever since the release of Vile, there has been the constant
ongoing battle of whether Cannibal Corpse was better with Chris Barnes or with
Corpsegrinder. I personally hate to get involved with that argument because I
don’t really care. Chris Barnes is one of my favorite death metal vocalists,
and so is Corpsegrinder. Cannibal Corpse is pretty damn lucky that all of their
vocalists have been top-notch growlers. I personally have a soft-spot for the
more guttural, deep growls like that of Demon Carcass, Mikael Akerfeldt, Frank
Mullen, and Chris Barnes. I also enjoy listening to the pre-1995 Cannibal
Corpse albums more than the post-Vile ones simply because I think that the
songwriting is better quality and that there was more teamwork as a band. And
yes, I know that the band hates Chris Barnes and will never take him back and
may say different; that the band wasn’t as focused as they are now (which is
true since 2004).
The guitarists on this album are actually quite a bit more
creative than on their most recent albums. There are more off-beats and
abstract timing going on in this album than in The Wretched Spawn (for
example). In The Wretched Spawn, the guitar work tends to primarily stick to
the low “chugging” chords; which sounds awesome, but gets old quickly (a common
mistake made by most death metal bands). An improvement that could be made
would be having more guitar solos (because when they played stuff live, they
would throw in guitar solos that sounded awesome that I wish they would have
done in the recording).
I think I should mention that Cannibal Corpse has been
growing up with Deicide. They both went to school together, they’ve even shared
several members along the way. The bond between these two bands is like Opeth and
Katatonia, Korn and Limp Bizkit, Epica and After Forever, and Metallica and
Megadeth (inside joke). It makes a lot of sense why they were friends in the
old days (a couple of years before I was born) because they were all complete
assholes. But Cannibal Corpse has really matured and become less assholish
while Deicide still is pretty fucked up (Glen Benton, duh). But regardless,
they’ve still been sticking together as friends for some reason.
The best song off of this album is definitely Hammer Smashed
Face. I don’t think I would even want to know what Barnes is saying in this
song, so I’ll leave that up to you. The intro is a one-of-a-kind intro that
will get you hooked instantly only to lead into a complicated bass solo mainly
played on the lower strings. The length of the song is perfect, being almost
exactly four minutes. The drummer is at the top of his game during this song,
constantly changing the tempos to keep the listener interested; creating parts
to headbang to and parts to go absolutely nuts to. This has actually gone down
as one of my favorite songs of all time because it’s one of those songs that
puts a big smile on my face no matter when I listen to it.
Being one of the bands that defined pure death metal back in
the early 90s along with Deicide, Suffocation, Death, and Morbid Angel, there
is a lot of respect that these guys deserve, sometimes even getting more than
what they have earned. A lot of people have considered Cannibal Corpse to be
the most brutal band of all time. This was probably true back in the early 90s
(until Suffocation turned up the bass on their recordings), but nowadays, this
isn’t any more brutal than the next death metal band. But regardless of that,
everyone has acknowledged this album as a true classic that will never be
forgotten.
From having some of the most disturbing and disgusting
lyrics to having some of the most organized and best death metal ever to reach
the ears of a human being. Tomb of the Mutilated has always been one of my
favorite traditional death metal albums. So far, I’ve seen Cannibal Corpse once
at the 2009 Mayhem Festival (more than two years ago) so I’m really hoping they
take a trip to the west coast sometime soon. I would definitely give this album
a perfect score.
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