Thursday, August 12, 2010

Cannibal Corpse - Evisceration Plague

About par for the course, (and that's a good thing)

If you've ever heard a Cannibal Corpse album before, you knew exactly how Evisceration Plague was going to sound from the time they announced they were even working on a new album. While the first four records do indeed have their variances between them that help them stand out amongst one another, there's no denying that they haven't really done anything different since Fisher joined the ranks. But here's the best part, they haven't had to change. Cannibal Corpse are currently in the middle of a streak reminiscent of Krisiun or Vader, where the albums don't vary too horribly much, but they all do what they set out to do extremely well. Evisceration Plague has but one goal in mind, and that is to destroy absolutely everything around it.

Everything you've come to expect from Cannibal Corpse is here in full force. There's the "Cannibal groove" drum pattern (as drummer, Paul, describes it) that surfaces in numerous tracks and helps add a deep, stomping groove to what would otherwise be plodding riffs. There's the obligatory under-two-minute maiming in "Scalding Hail", and extremely similar sounding tracks forming one coherent, half hour aural assault. Like nearly every album in their career, it's difficult to pinpoint a favorite track, and most albums can only be described as a whole. I can't tell you if "Priests of Sodom" is any better than "Carnivore Swarm" because of how similar they are. The difference is that instead of coming off as one faceless blur of blast beats, it presents itself as one monstrous Death Metal force, unrelenting in its attack. The overall tempo of the album is about as high as it was on Kill, which is faster than what they normally seem to play. This small adjustment has given us shorter tracks as a result, and it helps to keep the album from dragging on like some past efforts have done (Gallery of Suicide, Gore Obsessed). Therefore, the realization that "A Cauldron of Hate" is not only the longest track, but also the weakest, comes as no surprise. Rob and Pat have also seemed to taken a liking to shredding each others' faces off, as solos seem to come about as frequently as humanly possible near the end of the record.

Cannibal Corpse is just one of those anomalies... it may be easy to say that Tomb of the Mutilated is your favorite album, but it's rather difficult to explain why "I Cum Blood" is your favorite track on that album. Likewise here, I'd say that "To Decompose" or "Unnatural" would be the best tracks, but it's hard to defend that when they sound so similar to every other track. And that's what makes Cannibal Corpse so special, they can write the same song across seven albums and never get stale. Running Wild did a similar thing, and Krisiun did nearly the EXACT same thing. It can happen, if a band is good enough, it can happen. This is recommended for established fans of the band, but not those who are craving experimentation. If you're easily pleased like me, then you are bound to be more than happy with Evisceration Plague.

RATING - 85%

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