The Corpse has risen from its grave, and Its hungry! The new Cannibal Corpse album, A Skeletal Domain, has bared its teeth and is dripping its way toward your collection this Tuesday! After the break, I’ll bring their sins to light in a review of this great new tombstone from the American Death Metal stalwarts!
To provide a short review: holy fuck this album is good!
Long review: Cannibal Corpse has had a long and storied career, especially for a death metal band. They have had epic albums, mediocre albums, Jim Carrey loved them, they were in Ace Ventura (cut scene with him crowd surfing at a show), and Corpsegrinder is Nathan Explosion in Dethklok (if you’re not aware of that band, go kill yourself.)(Brutal). That a shit-ton of street cred, and they have only improved with age.
If I were to compare this album to something they have done, it’s going to be closer to Evisceration Plague (my personal favorite) than to the older stuff like Tomb of the Mutilated, due to a number of reasons. First and foremost, the vocals are amazingly clear for the genre, and yet, in sweet dichotomy, like a gravel truck avalanche out of your speakers. Fisher’s vocal attack is as much a signature as their song titles. Not to be outshined, the guitars have only become more technical, with some amazing shred work winding throughout some brutal and fast songs. A great highlight is song 3, Kill or Become. This song shreds faces like Sargento cheese! its also my pick off this album, predominantly due to the lyric choice “Fire up the chainsaw… Like a fucking asshole!” What you hear may vary, but no lyric can match that. Ever. And make no mistake, the guitarists are very talented, but the shreddery detracts not one bit from the tone. Its death metal, its just death metal that paid attention in class.
Here’s the full track listing for A Skeletal Domain, to illustrate:
High Velocity Impact Splatter
Sadistic Embodiment
Kill or Become*
A Skeletal Domain*
Headlong into Carnage
The Murderer’s Pact*
Funeral Cremation*
Icepick Lobotomy
Vector of Cruelty
Bloodstained Cement*
Asphyxiate to Resuscitate
Hollowed Bodies
*denotes author picks
This album is also landmark for them, as its (un)lucky #13! The album comes complete with sickly rendered artwork, depicting the titular Skeletal Domain, and really sends the message home about googling vacation places.
In related Cannibal Corpse happenings, this September, the band will unleash their first-ever official authorized biography. Written by Joel McIver, author of Justice For All: The Truth About Metallica and biographies on Black Sabbath, Slayer, Slipknot, and Queens Of The Stone Age, Bible Of Butchery – Cannibal Corpse: The Official Biography will contain over 150 pages loaded with photos from the band’s collection, available everywhere this Fall!
Pick up A Skeletal Domain anywhere brutal music is sold, this Tuesday September 16, 2014!
