Death is June- Looking Back in Anger at Cannibal Corpses : "The Wretched Spawn"

The 9th album and now 5th with Corpsegrinder, marks the band now having more albums working with George than Chris. They hit you with a blur of speed and considering this is 2004, metal was going in a heavier direction, so they have to maintain their status of brutality. Almost a grindcore-like energy goes into something like "Psychotic Precision". This is also the last album with Jack Owen  You can not accuse him of dialing it in or not being into it anymore because he wrote "Decency Defied" which is a ripper. The songs feel shorter on this album which might lend credence to the underlying grindcore influence. 

They begin to pour on the speed for "Frantic Disembowelment" and the results are lukewarm, as it feels like the song is just hurtling past you. They slow down for the title track, allowing them to grind into the main riff. "Cyanide Assassin" is a little more chaotic, anchored by the riffs book ending the more mazelike portions of the song.  When they slow down to a more death-doom pace for "Festering in the Crypt" the results speak for themselves as it is one of the album's heaviest songs. "Nothing Left to Mutilate" is a double bass-driven affair that is more typical for what they do. The syncopation of the drumming and vocal arrangements continue to make a case for these guys being at the top of the genre, as it's more fine-tuned than what 90 percent of the bands this brutal think of doing. 

They resort to speed again for "Blunt Force Castration". It's their version of " Balls to the Wall". "Rotted Body Landslide" benefits from some of the album's better riffing. The vocals fall in all the right places as well to give this song the edge. The ride cymbal to "Slain' recalls something Dave Lombardo might do. It is not as tightly arranged as some of the album's strongest songs, but works for what this is. When they do lay the speed on thick, it's given passages that put it in context. The solos are a little more haphazard, but so are Slayer's. "Bent Backwords and Broken" hammers in motion consistent with what they are known for. The last song is another dose of locomotive thrashings. I will give this one an 8, it's solid but not their most inspired by far, the band was heading into a rut in the early 2000s for sure. 

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