Album number 12 since 1988 Cannibal Corpse have been the stalwarts to the Death Metal style, offering album after album of gore, horror, and fictional violence. Since this is my first review of Cannibal Corpse, but not the first time I've listened to them.
Torture...holy...no...wait...fuck! There is much to digest, but overall the motif is right where its always been...steadfast. Sure these gents have been around going on almost 25 years, I didn't get into Cannibal Corpse until 1994's The Bleeding. It is super crazy how time fucking flies!
Torture gives a big nod to prior material, but I think of The Bleeding, Gallery Of Suicide, and Gore Obsessed all rolled into this release. Scourge Of Iron for example, harkens back to the early era Corpse, but with a nastier guitar crunch, groove, and relaxed fast tempo. I think this should be the hospital theme song! This track gives me goose bumps.
Alex Webster's bass work is more pronounced this time. His tempo changes are a marvel to hear, I'm in awe every time. His fretwork is superb, as is his spacing between the notes of the songs.
Drumming has the ferocious blast beats, interchanging rhythms, all accentuated by the twin guitarists. Almost feels like the guitars were done first, and the drums were fit into the seams without much of a tiniest millisecond off. From these seasoned ears, there was a lot of preparation here, and it shows.
The guitars are friggen monstrous. The notes move in an around calamity, and harmony. The soloing weaves around the riffs, whereas the rhythm guitar takes center stage. Its a little different for Cannibal Corpse, but I think it works.
I love how this was mixed, all instruments are in equal balance, as nothing is tripping over each other. I would have loved to been in on this recording session, so many elements, there's great focus, and damn does this feel good!
Powering through this the first few listens, goes extremely quick. It takes a discernible ear to pick out real crucial elements. Since I'm an album kind of person, the fluidity of current records has been missing in a lot of today's extreme music.
Due in part I think to the short attention spans, or the one and done single. Thankfully Cannibal Corpse have found what works for them, by staying true to their idiom, and they've always executed time and again. Torture is a flawless record! I think that with so much out there its nice to return to the place I cut my teeth. Overall, a great addition to the Cannibal Corpse foundation.
Thanks for reading.
B.
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