Can you believe Chaos Horrific is the 16th album from Cannibal Corpse?  Talk about an achievement in death metal.  Seriously if they wanted to break up now who could blame them?  They have accomplished more than enough and have given back to the death metal scene an enormous amount.

That said, other than the album name, the rest of these prior sentences are directly pulled from my review of Cannibal’s Violence Unimagined album in 2021.  I really enjoyed that last album…quite a lot…..sometimes more is not always better….right???  So Cannibal Corpse was quick to bump out another album a mere 2 years later….So my beginning same sentences from the prior review were strategic in my review because just because I love bands that have been around for a long time…I still will remain objective and not give a band a “pass”..because no band should rest on their laurels and Cannibal Corpse, the biggest death metal band in the world, are a hardcore bunch of super cool guys who always have their nose to the sand blaster grindstone with touring, writing and merchandise.   Whereas, the last album, the uncensored version, had their most disgusting and violent album cover since 2004’s uncensored  The Wretched Spawn, Chaos Horrific boasts a cover,…that is well, just kinda there.  People hacking and slashing their way through a zombie horde…cool and all, but it’s phoned in, in my opinion.

Chaos Horrific contains 10 songs and at 39 minutes this production is fuller and more powerful than their previous, yet better, album.  The guitar tone is super thick.  “Overlords of Violence” has one of the best opening moments in the band’s brutal history with the isolated bass plucking.  I love this part a lot….then the song gets into a speed that they are more than comfortable with.  A galloping death thrash pace and the song…well it really goes nowhere fast….it’s kinda just there. The band is tight AF and the musicianship is stellar…but the song does not excite me, the next song “Frenzied Feeding” should have opened the album.  The riffing is better and the song is multi-dimensional.  The slow down halfway through the song is blistering and opening up with this song live would cause a wave of bodies to explode all over one self.

My favorite song is “Blood Blind”, calling to mind some of the band’s prior songs, like the title track off Evisceration Plague, this song owns.  It’s so heavy and the increased production values on this album, make this one of the heaviest and best tracks the band has crafted.  The song slightly picks up the pace and some interesting drum patterns erupt.  Corpsegrinder sounds great and the guitar solo that comes in and the song shifting gears to slow down again is classic.  The solo’s mix is piped in higher and the song returns to that bludgeoning slow heavy dirge.  Again…this song must be played live.  It is that good and a headbanger’s wet dream.

Another excellent track is “Pitchfork Impalement”, which will bring a smile to the blasting speed freaks….this is the most brutal song on the album.  With these last few albums, Cannibal Corpse is pulling back on their blasting and I think the last album only had 1 song with blast beats…so this is the only blasting song.  It has a very Tomb of the Mutilated tone and song structure to it, and since that is my favorite Cannibal Corpse album, this song is definitely a personal favorite.  The rhythm section is lights out and the guitar solos are great.  Bringing in Erik Rutan on second guitar with the last album, was definitely a smart decision..he has pushed the band to remain at the top of their game….Fast forward until the last song.. “Drain You Empty”…no, no, no reader this song is not about loveys, dearhearts or sunshine, tsk tsk..it’s about draining your body of blood, guts and fluids.  It begins pretty epic with an almost funeral death dirge march.  This opening is super heavy.  The song picks up the pace and Alex Webster once again proves why he is an elite bass guitar player.  The song slows down after the death thrash pace and a nice guitar solo is piped in, while that slow heaviness is breached again, and this is an excellent song.

The rest of the album is just kinda there..it’s a bit meh…the lack of blasting over these last several albums is definitely not the trend I like the band heading into and the majority of the songs are mid-paced with gallops.  A bunch of songs are there, with no real staying power, so the catchiness is not as prevalent as previous Cannibal Corpse efforts.  Perhaps if the band maybe waited a little longer rather than a brief 2 years, this album would have had more memorable songs.  Some great moments on this album, but overall Chaos Horrific is a fair to middling Cannibal Corpse album, from a band that can do much better, but it will still sell by the bucketloads.

 

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