Haters gonna hate.
To be frank, I think Cannibal Corpse is a strong brand name that has always cemented the band’s “indisputable” place as one of death metal’s most important bands. Look, Cannibal Corpse are one of those staple American death metal bands who have always done and probably will always do a brutally good job at pleasing their old fans with each new album, receive heaps of accolades from “metal authorities” such as gigantic metal websites/blogs and various printed magazines, and give killer live performances on tours. But at what cost?
Innovation, that’s what.
Metal that is composed, performed and recorded well enough can still sound good even if the musicians are not being creative by coming up with the gazillionth metal sub-genre… that is if we’re talking about new bands. Quality, new bands generally have fresher riff and solo ideas due to the benefit of not having to worry about the pressure of matching up to an as-of-yet non-existent hit debut album, or a string of old classics already under their belts. Hence, they can still sound interesting even if they are repeating the formula.
However, Cannibal Corpse have been around for a really long time. Amidst the recent gore/death metal revival (with pals like Exhumed and Aborted), Cannibal Corpse is the biggest name, yet its members have also been the most uncreative so far. Exhumed’s latest offering saw an increase in melodic guitar solos, and while Aborted also sounded like how they did on past albums, at least they made up for it with catchy, rapid stop-start rhythmic patterns rather than submit the listener to a continuous stream of unpunctuated sound. George “Corpsegrinder” Fisher still mostly growls monotonously with nary a variation in pitch, the riffs also chug along repetitively with the occasional groove thrown in, the blast beats are as typical as blast beats can get (meh), that messy wall of sound overpowering your ears; all of these are thrown together into the formulaic brutal death metal blender to present to the listener music that still sounds as gnarly and repulsively intense as it did 20 or so years ago, but really, nothing is new here. For example, the opening riffs to opening track “Demented Aggression” sounds like those that kick off “As Deep As The Knife Will Go”. Same old, same old.
Everything you like about a traditional Cannibal Corpse album can be found here—right down to the label releasing this record (they are STILL on Metal Blade). The traditional cartoonish and morbid death metal artwork, the cliché album title, the gore-themed track titles et cetera… for hardcore fans of Cannibal Corpse only.
[Visit the band's website]Find more articles with 2012, Cannibal Corpse, Dane Prokofiev, Death Metal, Metal Blade Records, Review
Comments
Leave a Reply
Damn, I don’t want to sound like a dick, but I didn’t take anything away from this review other than Corpse still sounds like Corpse, and you don’t like them. A little more info on the songs would help to validate your point. I will agree that the artwork has fine down in the last few years though.
on Mar 12th, 2012 at 08:48…gone down hill. Sorry, stupid autocorrect.
on Mar 12th, 2012 at 08:54Well… what you took away from this review is exactly what I hope people will take away from it. ;)
There really isn’t much to elaborate on the songs, because they really sound like good old Cannibal Corpse, but only with newer riffs and grooves (that aren’t even groundbreaking or anything), that’s all.
Elaborating further on more of the songs on this album would have been akin to writing a review of an old Cannibal Corpse album.
on Mar 12th, 2012 at 09:03Well in that case, this is a good, honest review that reflects your opinion well, instead of pandering to what I or anyone else may think.
on Mar 12th, 2012 at 10:52I find Cannibal Corpse refreshing. Due to the fact that there have been so many “riff-salad” bands popping up that don’t know how to write songs let alone memorable riffs. So I’m in for a buy on this one definitely.
on Mar 12th, 2012 at 12:11If they’d done something different thid half wit would have hated it too.this band isn’t in existence for him.
on Mar 15th, 2012 at 07:03Haters gonna hate, indeed.
Obviously the writer of this review is not a fan of Cannibal Corpse. Fair enough, everyone has their own tastes. What’s sort of ironic about this review though is that as it’s written by a Cannibal Corpse detractor, it reads as though it could have been written about any Cannibal Corpse album. Which is ignorant, as there has been significant innovation and progression throughout Corpse’s career within the formula they’ve opted to use. So in a sense, the reviewer criticizes Corpse for not progressing, when this negative review lacks innovation or progression from any number of reviews of this band from haters over the years. As a fan of this band I will add that it’s nice to see a band progress, refine, and stick to their guns, rather than bow to the will of the trendy contingent of the metal community in the name of “innovation”.
And using Exhumed as an example of a band that has progressed? Ok, I suppose there has been a bit of progression between their latest and Reek of Putrefaction.
on Mar 15th, 2012 at 19:13The thing is, this album DOES sound different from other Corpse releases and it actually made me a fan. They’re finally mixing things up and writing entertaining songs instead of just stringing a bunch of time changes together while repeating the title of the song a hundred times. songs like “Demented Aggression” and “Followed Home Then Killed” remind me a lot of Krisiun only with intricate bass parts and violent lyrics, and I think the apparent Brazilian influence was the boost this band needed.
on Mar 16th, 2012 at 11:16the albums okay, kind of boring though and corpsegrinder sounds like hes rapping fast. good review and def agree with the last sentence
on Mar 30th, 2012 at 17:02