It's easy to think these guys came from Tampa with all the other death metal bands from this era of the 80's , but these guys were from New York.They are a band whose name has to come to mind when you think of death metal. This is their 13th album, so they have a good grasp on what they are doing .If you are like me and latched onto the Chris Barnes years, never giving Corpsegrinder a chance , despite his being the inspiration for Nathan Explosion, then the numbers do the talking as Barnes only has four albums with the band vs George's 9.... so he is Cannibal Corpse. His approach here remains is very straight forward , he relies on using punching phrasing to fist fuck your corpse.
Lyrically you know what you are getting here, it doesn't sound like they are getting as vile as the Tomb of the Mutilated. Production is a problem that seems to have been solved for them over the years.The drums don't have that flat snare sound that used to plague the earlier albums. Right out of the gate the crisp guitars are in your face solos and all. The bass is very audible and rumbles in a manner similar to old Deicide.
The songs do begin to sound the same by "Sadistic Embodiment" though the accents hit you from another angle. "Kill or Become" also sets it self apart before going into more of blast that returns to a groove. The chant of "fire up the chainsaw. Has a nice gore shout out to horror movies that certainly fits going into October.
These songs are all pretty fast wham blam defile you mam in length, with the five minute "The Murderer's Pact" as the album's most sprawling. The title track posses one of the album's most powerful chugs. This album is pretty brutal, but if you moved on to darker rawer death metal like the whole Incantation school death metal, this might come across as mall metal to you. Some of the more straight forward moments like 'Headlong into Carnage" don't do much for me despite the flawlessness of the execution.
The velocity of "Murder's Pact" gets my attention. Then it loses me when it seems they are taking the easy way out, but I have to remember these guys are like Ac/Dc and Motorhead in that regard.It just begins to boil down to not all chugs are created equal, it's the ones that really lock on here that make or break these songs. Sure there are solos that are surprisingly tasteful in the Deathklock sort of way.With that said the chugs on "Funeral Cremation" are pretty rewarding. "Vector of Cruelty" is also pretty solid and stands out from the pack."Bloodstained Cement" digs its feet into the chug pretty heavily as well. The Slayer influence on the genre peeks out slightly on " Asphyxiate to Resuscitate" The closer "Hallowed Bodies" pretty much sums the album up with the fury of it's chug.
This album is pretty solid as far as straight forward death metal goes, the songwriting has matured and I think I am finally ready to pass the mantle over to George now ,as it sounds as if he is worthy. I am going to give this album an 8, but if you are a fan of the band then this is obviously what you want so round it up to a 9.
No comments:
Post a Comment