When it comes to CANNIBAL CORPSE, this band ages like fine wine. With 16 albums in 35 years, the American Death Metal based out of Tampa, Florida have cemented themselves as the overlords of Brutal Death. And speaking of albums, CANNIBAL CORPSE’s highly anticipated 16th album “Chaos Horrific” has finally been released through the American record label Metal Blade Records! With 10 tracks clocking up to just over 39 minutes, it’s guaranteed to immerse you in glorious, gory violence. You may have thought that these guys couldn’t get harder and more brutal after their 2021 album “Violence Unimagined.” If that’s the case, you thought wrong.
The opening track “Overlords of Violence” immediately delivers a hammer blow to your senses. No soft intro, no warning, nothing like that. CANNIBAL CORPSE just gets straight into it with this track. If anything, the title perfectly describes who this band is. This song, along with the next track “Frenzied Feeding,” gave me the impression that the Death Metal on this album would have significant elements of Thrash Metal on top of it as well. This was no surprise, since it’s one of the countless things that makes CANNIBAL CORPSE so great. The skank beats and double bass patterns from Paul Mazurkiewicz Jr. are on point as always, as well as the ultrafast guitar riffs from Erik Rutan and Rob Barrett. One of the album’s singles “Summoned For Sacrifice,” which was separately released on August 9th, follows the Thrash/Death Metal trajectory too and ranks as one of my personal favorites from the record. “Blood Blind”–another single from “Chaos Horrific”–maintains a mid-tempo for about the first half of the track, before the band sneaks up from behind and hits you again with another fast tempo moment.
The third and final single from the album is the title track and sixth track, and it’s another one of my favorites from CANNIBAL CORPSE. This song in particular reminded me of “Scourge of Iron” from the band’s critically acclaimed 2012 album “Torture.” If that’s not enough of a reason to appreciate this specific song, then I don’t know what else will. At this point, I will say that one of my favorite things about Brutal Death Metal are the blast beats, which I didn’t hear for the majority of the album. Then I listened to “Pitchfork Impalement.” Not only was this one of the fastest songs on the entire record, but that blast beat at the end was something else! Power to you for that one, Mazurkiewicz. However, by the time I came to “Pestilential Rictus” and “Drain You Empty,” things just seemed a tad bit monotonous at this point. It was mainly George Corpsegrinder’s vocals. I loved them, don’t get me wrong. However, I would have personally loved to hear more of his signature high-pitched, grinding shrieks. On the flip side, to close my overall review, yet another thing I loved about “Chaos Horrific” was how each track had a mind-scrambling guitar solo. Whether Rutan or Barrett was responsible for most or all of them doesn’t matter. The solos were incredibly awesome, so I’ll leave it at that.
I am a huge fan of CANNIBAL CORPSE, and “Chaos Horrific” definitely met my expectations. They picked up from where they left off on their previous effort “Violence Unimagined” and doubled the musical intensity and violent lyrical content. My only grievances–minor grievances, I might add–against the new album were the lack of variety in Mr. Corpsegrinder’s vocals and blast beats from the legendary Paul Mazurkiewicz Jr. With everything else CANNIBAL CORPSE accomplishes on “Chaos Horrific,” I can definitely overlook the errors. And major thanks to Vincent Locke for the amazingly gory artwork for the album cover. Now, stop reading this review and go listen to the album right now. Another violent death by CANNIBAL CORPSE awaits you!
Rating: 9/10
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