Death is June - Looking Back in Anger at Cannibal Corpse's "Gallery of Suicide"

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 For this album to be titled "Gallery of Suicide" most of the songs seem to be about murder again. This is the band's 6th album. It feels like the production is more streamlined.. In some ways the arrangements which are a little more thrashy complement this. The guitar tone is more compressed without much of a low end until you get to "Sentence to Burn" which is the first song that really rocks my socks. "Blood Drenched Execution" is the band's more typical show of sonic brute force, with most of the nuance lying in the palm-muted rapid-fire riffs. 

Even with this album not thematically aligning with the title, the title track itself might be one of the band's best songs. There is a darker melodic riff that is new ground for the band that works really well in providing the most effective dynamic shift. "Dismembered and Molested' might be on brand for the band, but compared to the previous song it sounds dialed in. "From Skin to Liquid' is an instrumental, not the band's first, but better than the instrumental on the previous album. It grinds into a more doom-like pace.  "Unite the Dead" goes for the jugular. The vocal patterns feel a little rushed, making it, not the most memorable, song but consistent with what these guys do. 

"Stabbed in the Throat" might not be the most creative, but it works for what they throw at you. The guitars sound great on this one and the vocals have a clear purpose. "Chambers of Blood" has a more Morbid Angel feel to it, and now that I am making my way through the catalog it seems like each album has to have one of these. "Headless" races past your ears in such a blur, it is easy to miss the cool parts buried within this song. They keep their feet to the gas on "Every Bone Broken", but it finds its groove even at the intensity level they churn it out at. Their technical prowess can be felt in the sinew of "Centuries of Torment" which ends the album with another exercise in brutality, considering who this is it works and is expected. I will give this album a 9, it holds up against their other work.

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