CANNIBAL CORPSE - USA

CANNIBAL CORPSE - THE WRETCHED SPAWN - METAL BLADE
Note: In order to combat bootlegging and advance internet availability Metal Blade has shipped the promotional version of Cannibal Corpse's The Wretched Spawn with what it calls 'audio interruption.' In other words, the label has saddled this CD with a series of beeps which act as interruption and static at random points. A reviewer, therefore, has to sit through several hours of annoying beeps in order to properly review this album.
This tactic is analogous to others used with increasing frequency by this and other labels to combat music piracy.
Metal Blade recently only shipped a three-song version of the latest King Diamond album. Smart outlets ignored that wee CD and the label eventually shipped a full version. Earache has shipped CDs with songs chopped into dozens of different tracks in order to combat digital propagation. Nuclear Blast has been known to fade out songs prematurely on promotional CDs and Osmose licensed anti-piracy technology for all its CDs. This latter trick soon ended when disc owners discovered the magic effects of magic markers.
To cut to the chase, record labels are pleading loss of revenue and war against internet piracy as the reason for their actions. Fair enough, after all all these claims are verifiable and the labels and bands are victims, right?
Let's take a closer look. First, annoying the media will not alleviate internet piracy. These are the same people mandated to take the label's message to the public. The recording industry needs more friends and less alienated members of the public. Second, it was the same industry that imposed the digital evolution upon the public. Anyone recalls the mass demonstrations and sit-ins against LPs and in favour of CDs by members of the public? No? That is because there were none. It was the industry that ensured its future losses by forcing the consumer off LP and onto the CD format. It admittedly had a good reason to do so. After all, shipping costs came down, the stores where happier with the increased storage and display room and many fans went out and repurchased titles they already owned on CD. The labels, consequently, sold the same consumer the same album twice and pocketed the money. The CD was also marked higher than the LP even though the manufacturing costs were not higher once mass acceptance had set in. In short, the labels initiated their own long-term misery, through higher margins in the short-term. The behaviour is analogous to cancer. The actions of the cells eventually brings about their own demise.
It is now 2003 and sales are down. The record labels are crying foul. CDs were meant to prompt fans to repurchase music, bring shipping costs down, improve inventory and supply chain and make the industry more money. Instead the labels and musicians feel they are being stolen from. This however is not the whole story. Many of the same labels are also profiteering from the great internet digital exchange. Take Sony for example. The record label might be losing some money to the internet, but it is making much back by selling mp3 players. Did they think the public won't notice? Time Warner is another conglomerate complaining about lower sales. No word whether its AOL or internet cable sub-divisions are seeing increased demand and subscriber numbers from fans needing internet access or ordering more expensive higher bandwidth options in order to accommodate down and uploading.
The next point requires a trip to 1982. The recording industry of that time was also in the doldrums. Music sales were down. A closer look at the spending habits of the music-buying public revealed that the money had shifted from buying music to the arcades. That's right, kids were taking their LP/MC money and were instead shooting asteroids. Twenty years later, it is easy to make a similar comparison. Some of the money that would have been spent on CDs is being spent on what the market currently deems hipper alternatives. What is it that has replaced buying music? One look around will tell any dispassionate observer that the answer includes the internet, gaming and movies. So who makes money from DVD sales, online chat, following Nemo on the big and small screen or PS2 sales? The same folk who are crying over lost music sales. In other words, the situation is not even as dire as the early 80's when a consumer drift had shifted the spending out of the domain of the recording industry. In contrast, the current shift in spending habits has only rotated the spending from one subsidiary of Sony, Warner or Universal to another i.e. from the music division to the movie or gaming sides.
The recording industry's case is weak enough that neither a discussion of the quality of much of the music released by the recording industry nor the devaluation of the music by industry-owned licensing schemes and music clubs is warranted. In fact, it is ludicrous that the labels came to the digital music exchange business dead last and after being forced to do so by entrepreneurial innovative enterprises like napster et al.
Hopefully point made and let us proceed with the Cannibal Corpse review which prompted the discussion in the first place.
So they do exist... death metal bands that do not wimp beep out. Cannibal Corpse is the proof.
The Wretched Spawn is Cannibal Corpse's tenth album beep and the music, the lyrics, the album's title and artwork indicate a band hell-bent on its original ideals, mission and power. The band changes the tempo from song to song, but somehow it all works. In fact, the band sounds more at ease with itself than ever. Be beep it a fast song, a slow song, a guitar solo or whatever, the death metal veterans come across as comfortable, confident and secure in their art. The Wretched Spawn beep does not leave room for much criticism, but if better songs have to be cited they would be Severed Head Stoning and Frantic Disembowelment beep. Then there is the frantic solo on the title track which simply rips. Another noteworthy mention goes to the production. Neil Kernon has bestowed the band with a warm and thick sound beep worthy of a death metal band. The beep drums, in particular, are heavy and full.
The Wretched Spawn is a potent offering. The beep band has given birth to an album that is beep sure to propel its stock even higher than before. - Ali "The Metallian"

CANNIBAL CORPSE - KILL - METAL BLADE  
At first glance things don’t look too rosy for the latest Cannibal Corpse album, simply entitled Kill. While the album’s title and the band’s advance promise of an uncompromising album sounded hopeful, the generic album cover and the recruitment of Erik Rutan (with whom Cannibal bassist Alex Webster once shared a band) were hardly helpful. True to form Rutan’s production is not quite as hefty as that of previous albums, like The Wretched Spawn for instance, but Kill is still a brutal and authentic death metal experience. Cannibal Corpse is that rare and amazing death metal monster which refuses to compromise or be deterred. In fact, by now it is likely that the band’s previous naysayers who have been proselytised (or devoured).
On the musical front, Kill features little that is surprising or unexpected. Elements of the bands previous work are present throughout. George Fisher growls with confidence, the musicians behind him mix speed and heaviness and the lyrics show no inclination to play nice. In fact, with titles like Necrosadistic Warning and Purification By Fire (to choose two tracks with above average guitar work) the cannibals continue to offend with style. Balzac once observed that, “consistency (is) the most advanced form of strength.” That makes Cannibal Corpse the titans of the death metal scene. - Ali “The Metallian”

CANNIBAL CORPSE - EVISCERATION PLAGUE - METAL BLADE  
Listening to Priests Of Sodom, the opener to death metal legends Cannibal Corpse's new album Evisceration Plague, I can't help feeling a little deja vu. When the song started and the blast beats and down-tuned riffs began, I got the exact same feeling as I got when I put on Kill, from 2006. And the same feeling I got when I listened to Butchered At Birth and Tomb Of The Mutilated, which are from back around 1993. Every time I put a Cannibal Corpse album on, I can't help wondering if I'm listening to something I haven't heard before, or if this is just a random song from another Cannibal Corpse album. Evisceration Plague sounds a lot like pretty much everything that these death metalheads have made, ever. But the funny thing is, this is still genuinely a pretty good album. If you like death metal, then this is a good album to get. Just don't expect anything in the way of innovation.
As I said, this is a good album, and a lot of that is from the overall tightness and heaviness of the band. Cannibal Corpse has perfected its style of extreme, straightforward death metal, and this album proves it. Listen to Shatter My Bones and To Decompose. Guitars crush through the speakers, Corpsegrinder Fisher spits out goretastic lyrics over extremely downtuned riffs as the drums pound in the background, and the overall effect is one of aural carnage. Cannibal Corpse has legitimately been the most brutal band in the world since Eaten Back To Life, and this album continues that tradition. Another high point is the title track, which features - gasp - songwriting! And the guitarists turned in an extremely good performance too, not just in the numerous great riffs but in solos on songs such as Priests Of Sodom and A Cauldron Of Hate, which stand out to a degree.
As for the lyrics, that's one thing I actually am not much of a fan of here. Cannibal Corpse still features incredibly violent lyrics (as well as cover art), but they have been turned down a notch, and I'm not a fan of that. Where's Entrails Ripped From A Virgin's Cunt? I Cum Blood? Force Fed Broken Glass? Necropedophile? I think that the outlandishly, cartoonishly gory lyrics had a bit of charm to them, and I think it was something that made Cannibal Corpse more interesting. The lyrics are still, as I said, incredibly violent and evil (Skewered From Ear To Eye), but definitely less so. It gave Cannibal Corpse a little more power, a little more humour, a little more evil to have the lyrics as vomit-inducing as they were, and the point of this band is excess. It would be better if they went back to that in the future.
Good as the album may be, Evisceration Plague does suffer a bit from same-sounding syndrome. Even though it's a short album (wise move there), it still does sound pretty repetitive by the end. Played straight through, you begin to get the feeling that the album has ended and you're listening to the beginning again. This isn't too much of a problem, but it's worth mentioning. It ensures that this album, although standing above most death metal, does not stand above any Cannibal Corpse.
And honestly, that's the thing I'm coming to. Evisceration Plague features no growth at all from past work by this band. It is repetitive, it is not original, and the musical maturation of this band could be reasonably charted with a long, flat line. But you know what? I don't think Cannibal Corpse give a shit. And that's why this album gets a positive rating. Because what these guys do isn't art, it isn't painting, it's not Bach. This is death metal, damn it, and the point of death metal is to crack some skulls, and maybe rape a few corpses while you're at it. And looking at Evisceration Plague by itself, this album is absolutely better then the majority of the death metal bands trying to imitate these guys' albums from ten years ago. So no, Cannibal Corpse is not seriously an artistic band. But they were never serious artists! For their kind of metal, such puny things as change and evolution in their style are crushed by the stomping riffs of Scalding Hail.
And yes, if you like death metal and you don't already have a significant amount of Cannibal Corpse, I would say this is worth ten bucks -- not more then that, but ten. It's definitely worth trying out. So ultimately, this gets a positive review -- a low one, but a positive review. There's a certain coolness in Cannibal Corpse's complete refusal to be anything other then a death metal monster, and they are absolutely one of the kings of the death scene. They will never lighten up, never sell out, and will always remain the gory, vile, gnarly, kickass outfit that they always have been -- and from the looks of it, always will be. - Max V.

CANNIBAL CORPSE - EVISCERATION PLAGUE - METAL BLADE  
Long running Florida (by way of Buffalo) death metal staple Cannibal Corpse finds itself alive and well in ’09, the group not only still touring regularly but also - like many other metal bands - selling records as never before (Evisceration Plague unbelievably debuted in the Top 100 in the US and in the Top 40 [!] in Canada) as a result of the metal renaissance of the '00s. My good buddy Mark and I have this theory that Cannibal Corpse is 'kindergarten death metal,' a relatively benign entry point to the death metal world that becomes kind of innocuous once proper exploration into the sub-genre occurs and, it must be reported, the theory continues partially unabated on Evisceration Plague. That said, there are indeed several strong songs to be found here: Scalding Hail is a record highlight as are Beheading And Burning, Carnivorous Swarm and Shattering Their Bones but, generally, Evisceration Plague is introductory material whose main draw is metal fans who know no other death metal band than Cannibal Corpse. Consider Evisceration Plague an above-average Cannibal Corpse effort, one that has flashes of greater bands but remains mired in its own self-imposed confines. - James Tape