Cannibal Corpse at Myspace

Cannibal Corpse’s latest is pretty typical of the Corpsegrinder era. It certainly starts off well, with the insanely brutal “Priests of Sodom” and “Scalding Hail,” but some of the other numbers are unmemorable. “To Decompose” starts out strong, but the rest of the song feels awfully like they were phoning it in, a feeling I get from some other tracks on this album. Other strong tracks include “Evidence in the Furnace,” “Carnivorous Swarm” (which has a great intro and solo which evoke the titular horde), and the title track, which manages to convey CC’s trademark sense of hatred without being especially fast.

I don’t think the band’s albums with Corpsegrinder are terrible or anything, it’s just that they’re not as consistent as the Barnes albums (particularly the first three). If I listed my favorite Cannibal Corpse songs, there would be plenty from the later albums, but more recent albums just have more throwaway tracks, and Evisceration Plague is no exception. I do prefer the rougher production that the disappeared after “Tomb of the Mutilated”; producer Erik Rutan makes things sound just a bit too clear, although it’s not like this is the first CC album where that’s the case. As usual, Alex Webster’s bass is buried in the mix, which is a shame since he was so good with Blotted Science’s “The Machinations of Dementia.” Fans of the band will enjoy it, but newcomers should start with one of the Barnes-era albums.

Animals Killing People at Myspace

I’m not exactly a fan of extreme animal liberation groups. Whether they’re comparing Holocaust victims to livestock, staging sophomoric stunts involving naked women or completely ignoring the problem of animal-on-animal violence, I wouldn’t want to be even remotely associated with them even if I were a vegan. However, Animals Killing People have been inspired by their ideology to craft a solid album of deathgrind.

After a sample starts off the album, the first thing you’ll notice are the vocals. The vocals are some of the deepest, most guttural grunts I’ve ever heard, like some jagged, rusty chainsaw assembled by the devil himself. Unfortunately, the instrumental backing is just  too low in the mix, making the music too hard to hear. If you don’t normally listen to music with headphones, I advise doing so for this album; you won’t get the full effect otherwise. The music is chaotic, as is typical for grindcore, but without being completely directionless. Samples are used well, but sparingly; the band was smart enough not to put them in every track.

My biggest complaint was that the band put one of those lengthy hidden tracks at the end of the album. I HATE that gimmick. Aside from that, though, there’s really not much to complain about here, unless you’re so set against PETA-style propaganda that you can’t bear to listen to it even when it’s delivered through incomprehensible growling.

Cannibal Corpse at Myspace

To celebrate the band’s 20th anniversary, Metal Blade Records has released this 3-disc retrospective DVD chronicling the history of Cannibal Corpse, and it is excellent. I’m normally not that interested in music-related DVDs, but this one is packed with interesting information and hilarious footage. Disc 1 contains a three-hour documentary on the band’s history that features all Cannibal Corpse members past and present (except founding guitarist Bob Rusay, who was apparently impossible to track down). There’s scarcely a wasted moment on this disc; my favorite parts were old footage of band members screwing around with a camera and how lead singer George “Corpsegrinder” Fisher gave most of his interviews in front of a bookcase full of action figures that were still in their boxes. I knew he was nerdy, but not that nerdy! I also liked getting to see people associated with the band who I previously only knew by reputation; cover artist Vince Locke looks nothing like you’d expect someone who drew such gory images to look like.

Disc 2 is a set of Cannibal Corpse performances from all eras of the band (although the Barnes era is underrepresented). I liked this disc, but it was my least favorite of the three; I’ve never really cared that much for live DVDs. The second disc also contains all of the band’s videos. Disc 3 contains a bunch of themed collections of footage that didn’t make it into the first disc. My favorites among these were “Sickening Metalocalypse,” which covers Fisher’s recurring role on the Adult Swim show; “Every Ban Broken,” which discusses the censorship problems that the band has faced in countries like Germany and New Zealand, and “Covered With Ink,” which shows how die-hard Corpse fans have gotten images from the band’s notoriously gruesome album covers tattooed on them.

I only have one major complaint about this DVD set- the sound just isn’t loud enough! I watched this on my laptop, and even with the volume turned all the way up, it was noticeably less loud than actual Cannibal Corpse songs being played on iTunes on the same laptop. You’d think that a DVD about a band like CC would be as loud as possible. But despite that, I heartily recommend this DVD set. It’s highly entertaining, reasonably priced (at just $25 US), and has plenty of material (well over seven hours). I give it five out of five skinless, rotting cadavers.

Villains play mid 80’s esque death metal with plenty of influence from the first wave of black metal that sounds like it came straight from a teenager’s basement in 1980’s. I can almost picture it now, the poodle haircuts, the homemade Venom T shirts and the disused ALF merchandise in a corner and that Villains can summon up that vibe as a modern day band is pretty impressive indeed. Yes this hits the spot just right, very primitive nasty stuff; so primitive it would be rejected by the inhabitants of the Stone Age for being too backwards and basic.

This of course is a good thing as with all the technicality and modernity around extreme metal at the moment it’s could to have some bands all about blasting back to the past. At 28 minutes it’s just the right length and if you want a record to knock back the brews to, then well there’s fewer better candidates than “Drenched in the Poisons”.

Porkfarm at myspace

Playing a style of Death Metal very similar to Dying Fetus, Brain Drill, Necrophagist, and Beneath the Massacre, Young English Death Metal act Porkfarm display an apt control over both the brutal and technical sides of the genre. They keep the technical wizardly and the “slam” side of their sound under control displaying in where the song progresses to a point where either of them is needed but not veering off into either direction willy-nilly and it is this disciplined approach that gives this six song EP an air of supreme professionally.

At Nineteen minutes this release makes you demand more. Along with the Tech-Death and Slam influences some of the songs such as “Suffer” and “Torn Apart” have some old school influences such as vintage Morbid Angel and Deicide, and with many new bands falling into the deathcore/wigger slam trap its great to see a new band making death metal how its supposed to be made. Definitely one to watch in the future