Oct 202023
 

(Here’s DGR‘s review of the new Cannibal Corpse album, which is out now on Metal Blade Records.)

In all the decade-plus I’ve been writing for this site – try not to think about that too much – and metal in general, I don’t think I’ve ever taken the chance to write about a Cannibal Corpse album. With a career that has also spanned multiple decades and with a fair bit of cultural cachet to their name outside of heavy metal in general, Cannibal Corpse were long a cultural pillar before I’d even considered pursuing this as a way to distract from the outside world.

You don’t reach a point like that without having the talent to back it up though, because even if Cannibal Corpse had decided to rest on their laurels after their first few releases, you’d be hard pressed to say whether or not they’d still be as big now. The thing with Cannibal Corpse is that although they’ve been known mostly for gore-soaked lyrics, horrific artwork, and movie cameos, is the band are shockingly consistent with their output. They found a core blueprint that worked for them ages ago and have stuck close to it, guaranteeing an overall discography that is surprisingly solid – even if the actual surprises might come further and further apart nowadays. Continue reading »

May 042021
 

(For his first post of the week, Andy Synn takes aim at three of last month’s most sacred cows… but is he here to slaughter them, or just give them a little push?)

Last month saw the release of several new albums from some pretty big and (in)famous names (well, in Metal terms at least) and a resultant storm of press and PR both leading up to and following on from these releases.

And, to be honest, I wasn’t sure whether it was really worth us commenting on them. After all, they’re all well past the point where write-ups and reviews are going to have any sort of major impact on album sales, and have reached a stage in their careers where the fans are going to praise, and the haters are going to hate, no matter what.

Case in point, I’ve seen people calling the new Cannibal Corpse album “boring” even as others declare that it “pushes the Death Metal genre forward” (it doesn’t, but it’s far from “boring”), I’ve read posts claiming that Gojira are either “just a generic groove-metal act” or “the greatest band of the century” (they’re neither, as it happens), and observed several sites giving the latest Vreid a perfect 10/10 score (c’mon guys, it’s good, but do you really think it’s on the level of, say, Master of Puppets or are you just spitting hype because you know it gets clicks?).

That being the case, however, I still feel like there’s a place for a more measured and “objective” analysis of each of these releases, one which doesn’t exist just to confirm the pre-existing prejudices of its readers, which is why I decided to step up to the plate, take one for the team, and attempt to bring a little bit of balance to the force, by reviewing them all myself.

Continue reading »

Dec 092015
 

Cannibal Corpse tour

 

Here’s a round-up of news, new album artwork, and a couple of new songs I spotted over the last 24 hours.

CANNIBAL CORPSE

We’ll start with some tourism news: Yesterday it was announced that Cannibal Corpse will be headlining a big North American tour that begins on February 12 and runs through March 20. And the direct support for the tour is pretty eye-popping: Obituary, Cryptopsy, and Abysmal Dawn will be along for the ride.

Tickets go on sale this Friday, December 11, at local and national ticket outlets. Here’s the schedule, which I copied and pasted from Blabbermouth: Continue reading »

Nov 112014
 

 

Just minutes ago, Poland’s Behemoth posted an announcement on their Facebook page that they will be co-headlining a North American tour this winter with Cannibal Corpse, with support from Aeon and Tribulation from Sweden. The tour starts on January 28 in New Orleans and concludes on March 7 in Ft. Lauderdale. It includes six Canadian dates as well as stops in 21 U.S. states.

You will be delighted to know that the tour stops in Seattle, because whatever makes me happy necessarily makes you happy.

What a fucking pleasant way to begin the new year. General admission tickets go on sale this Friday and VIP tickets are on sale now — here. The full schedule of dates is as follows: Continue reading »

Sep 242014
 

This has been a big day for song and video premieres. In fact, all we’ve done today is post about song and video premieres. And in this post you’ll find three more.

ABYSMAL DAWN

As previously reported (with glee), Abysmal Dawn have a new album named Obsolescence coming out October 24 (Ger/Benelux/Finland) and October 27 (US/UK/World). It will be released by Relapse Records on CD, LP, and digitally. About an hour ago the band dropped another new song from the album named “The Inevitable Return To Darkness”.

It’s one heavy-assed ripper that kicks open the door to a death metal blast furnace. It’s fully loaded with technically impressive (and inventive) instrumental performances and voracious vocal filth, and it includes some cool dual-guitar harmony. Also, I can pretty much guarantee you’re going to want to bang your head like a bobble-head on a roller-coaster. Continue reading »

Sep 042014
 

 

(TheMadIsraeli reviews the new 13th album by Cannibal Corpse.)

Cannibal Corpse at this point really are in their musical stride. Even beyond the massive leap in musical proficiency the band made when Corpsegrinder replaced Barnes on vocals, the way they’ve been firing on all cylinders since The Wretched Spawn is really unmatched in the careers of many other long-standing extreme metal bands. In other cases, the quality might still be great, but it hasn’t consistently improved as it has in the discography of Cannibal Corpse. A Skeletal Domain follows Torture, which is a pretty difficult album to surmount, considering it was easily the most savage album they’d ever recorded. A Skeletal Domain is indeed better than its predecessor, though whether you agree may depend on whether you like the approach they’ve taken on this new one.

A Skeletal Domain is a very tactical technical death metal record. Everything about it feels calculated, refined, ground into a fine powder that shimmers like diamonds and will cut flesh at the touch. It’s a very riffy album in the spirit of the Jack Owen/Chris Barnes era, but with Pat O’Brien’s sense of guitar acrobatics. The mix is much cleaner, which really accents this more refined approach as well. I previously would’ve called Evisceration Plague their song-writing record. THIS is their song-writing record in definitive terms. Everything stays true to the Corpsegrinder-era Corpse spirit, but it is at the same time everything Torture was not. I praised Torture for its rather primal assault on the senses, and while A Skeletal Domain is definitely the equivalent of being beaten to death and mauled by a mandrill, it’s much more technical, the song structures much more progressive and more unconventional. Continue reading »

Jul 012014
 

This morning we gleefully delivered the cover art, album title, and projected release information for the new album by Cannibal CorpseA Skeletal Domain. And now, a few short hours later, we find that Metal Blade has released the first advance track from the album for public streaming. The song’s name is “Sadistic Embodiment” — and goddamn, it’s a scorcher. This album was produced by Mark Lewis (The Black Dahlia Murder, DevilDriver) instead of Erik Rutan, who produced the band’s last three albums, but it still sounds decimating.

The album will be released on September 16 and pre-orders are now being accepted here. Listen to the new track next. Continue reading »

Jul 012014
 

Details about the release of two albums I’m looking forward to were revealed over the last 24 hours…

CANNIBAL CORPSE

Since Cannabis Corpse released a new album this year, it seems only fitting that Cannibal Corpse will, too. Word emerged yesterday that its name will be A Skeletal Domain and that its release is expected in mid-September via Metal Blade. As you can see, the album art also surfaced. I haven’t yet seen the name of the artist since I haven’t yet seen an official press release, but it sure is an eye-catcher.  Update: thanks to a comment below, we’ve learned that the album cover was painted by Vince Locke.

And finally, we have the track list, which of course is half the fun of a new Cannibal Corpse album.  UPDATE: Plus, we now have the stream of a brand new song Continue reading »

Dec 022013
 

I’m still on vacation, and probably should be vacationing instead of spending time on the internet catching up on what’s been happening in the world of metal. Honestly, I expected that nothing would be happening without me there to notice it. You can imagine my shock and dismay in discovering that the world continues to turn even when I don’t pay attention to it. Something is seriously wrong.

Honestly, I didn’t try to dig too deeply into what I’ve been missing, but I did manage to fight through my depression and found a batch of recent things worth mentioning before returning to fucking off.

FLESHGOD APOCALYPSE

The last time a band’s merchandising ploy pulled me up short was when Ghost B.C. started selling dildos and butt plugs. But it happened again yesterday when, thanks to a link sent my way by The Autistic Metalhead, I discovered that Italy’s Fleshgod Apocalypse had started selling their own brand of pasta. It’s true. They’ve got four varieties and they’re shipping worldwide. In my case, it would cost 28 Euro, plus 20 Euro for shipping and handling. Continue reading »

Sep 222013
 

(It’s been a while since we received a guest post from Dane Prokofiev (who writes everywhere and has his own blog at Zetalambmary), but today he returns with an argument about why it’s worthwhile to use band comparisons in music reviews.) 

I used to dislike comparing a band whose album I was reviewing to another band in my written reviews and only resorted to doing so when I found absolutely nothing interesting about the band’s music to be worthy of description through the use of metaphors. Ever since my exposure to Saussurean semiotics, however, I have changed my mind.

Saussurean semiotics posits that there is no intrinsic connection between words and their meanings. That is to say, it is not natural for the word “dog” to refer to the concept of dog-ness. The word “dog” is a linguistic construct, something that is distinct from the concept of dog-ness. What English-speaking people label as “dog” is labeled as “الكلب” by Arabic-speaking people , “chien” by French-speaking people, “hunder” by Icelandic-speaking people, “犬” by Japanese-speaking people, and “狗” by Mandarin-speaking people. The fact that people use different words for the same object in different languages means that there is no particular connection between the word “dog” and the thing that we refer to as a “dog”.

The product of this arbitrary relationship between the signifier (“dog”) and the signified (the concept of dog-ness) is called the sign, which is the mental image that is conjured in a person’s mind when he or she sees the signifier and understands that it is referring to the signified, aka certain properties that constitute the thing-ness of something. Continue reading »