Album Review: Cannibal Corpse - 'Evisceration Plague'

With many metal bands becoming more mainstream and becoming softer to fit in with current trends and widen their audience, I was curious to listen to the new Cannibal Corpse album "Evisceration Plague". For a listener who enjoys death metal like I do, it was a nice change to listen to a band who is aiming to become heavier. The first track on the album begins with just guitar, which I hear and it is the best guitar tone they have had in all eleven albums, which they have released. Then the drumming starts and you are hit with an in your face with blast beats and George "Corpsegrinder" Fishers unique death growling and screams. This continues throughout the whole recording nonstop. 

The songs on the album are somewhat diverse compared to previous releases, with varying tempos – between 80-142bpm – and although, much of the album is in the same key, the guitar riffs, and vocals ranging from lengthened screams to lyrics spat out at high speed. This release like, their 2006 album "Kill" was produced by Erik Rutan (Hate Eternal, ex Morbid Angel), with a goal of producing their best, and heaviest to date. The riff work of Rob Barrett and Pat O'Brien, is exceptional and gives the album a nice wall of sound. The drumming of Paul Mazurkiewicz drowns the bass playing of Alex Webster out, so it would have been nicer if it had of been higher in the mix then it is.  

The lyrical content of the album, most of which written by Alex Webster, continues on the bands themes of horror and gore, with the title of the album describing what you are getting yourself in for upon listening to it. 

All in all the album is a great sounding album and by far their best yet, so the band achieved their aims and it will be interesting to see what they can do to better themselves with their next album.

1.  Priests of Sodom

2.  Scalding Hail

3.  To Decompose

4.  A Cauldron of Hate

5.  Beheading and Burning

6.  Evidence in the Furnace

7.  Carnivorous Swarm

8.  Evisceration Plague

9.  Shatter Their Bones

10.  Carrion Sculpted Entity

11.  Unnatural

12.  Skewered from Ear to Eye