Cannibal Corpse
Bloodthirst
Metal Blade
What else is there to say about Cannibal Corpse, one of the most popular death metal bands if only by the virtue of their commodification of gore ‘n’ grind predictability? Well, if you can say that sentence five times fast without the slightest hint of a smirk, the answer would be “not much else.” But if you don’t fall in that category, you might be wondering what these Tampa-by-the-way-of-New Jersey heavies are going to pull out of their bag (blood and guts? Natch!) on Bloodthirst , the band’s seventh album and second without original growler Chris Barnes, now fronting Six Feet Under.
Well, the album doesn’t depart considerably – if at all – from previous efforts, other than the band’s cardiac arrest-complex-but formless song structures now seem deliberate, and doom-sludge gets a nod here and there, too, maybe taking a cue from Barnes’s astute crew (ace track: “Ecstacy [sic] in Decay,” probably not about ravers). New(er) frontman George “Corpsegrinder” Fisher isn’t quite as sub-bowel level guttural as Barnes is/was, but he isn’t very distinct, either. Regardless, you just know Bloodthirst is going to sell by the (relative) shitloads, because, after all, this is America and the youth literally eat this stuff up – God bless us, one and all!
Metal Blade Records, 2828 Cochran St., Suite 302, Simi Valley, CA 93065-2793; http://www.metalblade.com
