CANNIBAL CORPSE – “TORTURE”
METAL BLADE (2012)
Being a band that has helped shape the extreme genre that we all know as Death Metal, and enjoying a pretty impressive twenty four year pedigree, is an achievement in itself and even though that would have been enough to satisfy any outfit, it does not seem to be the case with the US east coast quintet Cannibal Corpse! Three years ago, Alex Webster (bass) and Co managed to shake the foundations of the genre by releasing the much-loved and highly acclaimed “Evisceration Plague”. Now, the next great task that these five noisemakers have to face is to release an album that will follow up on this quite successful release – their twelfth studio album “Torture”.
One thing that made “Evisceration Plague” such an impressive musical proposition was the band’s ability to provide its audience with fairly varied material, but which retained the character that Cannibal Corpse have so patiently worked towards these past two decades. Well, you will be happy to know that “Torture” is the product of a group of musicians with a similar approach to song writing – a product that features a great number of simply crafted musical compositions, enabling the artists in question to once again stretch their musical muscles and impress us with their inventiveness and dexterity.
Fans of both old and new: this is again a time for celebration! All those repetitive heavy riffs and Slayeric solos that you learned to love over the years are still here and a few new classics have been born as a result – all with the precious help of producer-extraordinaire Mr. Erik Rutan.
I really cannot think of a more impressive way to start this album than with “Demented Aggression” – a three minute up-tempo belter filled with Thrash-infused riffs, featuring multi-layered vocals comparable to those of bands like Deicide. “Sarcofagic Frenzy” is a structurally varied piece with head banging quality riffs and paves the way for the slow groovy tunes of “Scourge Of Iron” – a heavy-as-hell Morbid Angel influenced monster which I singled out as the best song of the album.
“Encased In Concrete” is a classic Cannibal Corpse piece, featuring some truly impressive drumming and solos of a Slayeric nature, followed by the more pompous groovy hooks of “As Deep As The Knife Will Go”. “Intestinal Crank” is a fairly decent piece of work, scoring fairly low when compared to the intelligent harmonic themes of “Followed Home Then Killed” or the expertly-performed bass lines of “The Strangulation Chair” – another real highlight!
More bass guitar extravaganza can be found in “Caged…Contorted” and the band’s compositional prowess is further manifested in the head banging opus “Crucifier Avenged”, leaving the slightly shorter but equally intense “Rabid” and “Torn Through” to wrap things up and declare the completion of yet another successful album!
There was a time back in the day when my friends and I we were young and care-free enough to spend hours upon hours on various music-related conversations and one theme that always came up was whether extreme Metal bands/artists would continue to create top quality music as they grew older.
Well, when it comes to things like that you cannot really generalise but in the case of Cannibal Corpse, what you have is a group of musicians in their early 40s who, in “Torture”, are presenting us with some of their best material ever! This in another collection of top quality Death Metal tunes that fans of extreme Metal should definitely be adding to their collection.
John Stefanis
Rating: ****1/2 (4.5/5.0)
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