Cannibal Corpse is one of those bands that every fan of death metal knows. Whether you love them or you hate them, you have to give them credit for consistently releasing material since 1989 and for being one of the most important progenitors of death metal. The band is set to release their twelfth studio album, Torture, on March 13th via Metal Blade Records.
Torture is, for the most part, standard Cannibal Corpse. It’s raw, aggressive, and brutal. If you’ve been listening to Cannibal Corpse for any length of time, you should know to expect nothing but raw aggression from them. Everything on Torture is incredibly calculated and precise. Erik Rutan, despite being a member of the abysmal Hate Eternal, does a commendable job as producer. Everything is clear and audible.
Demented Aggression, the first single from Torture, starts the album off on the right foot. It’s one of the faster and more aggressive songs on the album, but the band does a good job of breaking up all the shredding with some slower groovy passages. Corpsegrinder’s vocals feel incredibly hurried and raw, and this adds a good deal to the song as a whole. In addition, the vocals are as solid as they’ve always been.
While most of Torture is marked by speed, there are some spots in which the album is slowed down. Scourge of Iron, for example, is one of the slower songs on the album and it offers a nice change of pace from all of the fast-paced brutality that Cannibal Corpse is famous for. As I mentioned earlier, there are also slower passages within the faster songs that provide a good change of pace.
While the vocals, guitars, and drums are all outstanding, I’d like to discuss the bass found within Torture. Bassist Alex Webster has some particularly good bass lines throughout the album, particularly on Encased in Concrete. There is even a bass solo halfway through The Strangulation Chair. Many metal bands don’t seem to give enough credit to their bassists and instead give them a simple support role in which they’re barely audible. Bassists can add quite a bit to the music, as evidenced by the likes of Evan Brewer and Alex Webster, so this support role that many bassists are typically given is slightly disheartening. Cannibal Corpse and Webster do not suffer from this problem, and for that I commend them.
Even though Torture is not the best Cannibal Corpse album, it is still very good and illustrates that the band is, hopefully, not planning on slowing down or stopping any time soon. They’re still delivering that raw, in-your-face death metal that they’ve been releasing since their inception in 1989. Any Cannibal Corpse fan owes it to themselves to give Torture at least one listen. And if you’ve never actually listened to Cannibal Corpse before, Torture might be a fine place to start.
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