Cannibal Corpse is an American death metal band formed in Buffalo, New York, in 1988, now based out of Tampa, Florida. The band has released sixteen studio albums, two box sets, four video albums, and two live albums. The band has had little radio or television exposure throughout its existence, although a cult following began to build with the releases of their early albums, including Butchered at Birth (1991) and Tomb of the Mutilated (1992). As of 2015, they achieved worldwide sales of two million units for combined sales of all their albums.[1][2] In April 2021, Cannibal Corpse received their best "first week" sales of all-time and first Top 10 on the Billboard Top Album Sales Chart as Violence Unimagined entered at No. 6 with 14,000 copies sold.[3]
Bassist Alex Webster came up with the name Cannibal Corpse. They have had several lineup changes since their inception, with Webster and drummer Paul Mazurkiewicz as the only constant members. The members of Cannibal Corpse were originally inspired by thrash metal bands like Metallica, Slayer, Dark Angel, S.O.D., Sadus, Sodom, Kreator, D.R.I. and Sacrifice, and death metal bands such as Possessed, Autopsy, Morbid Angel and Death.[4][5][6] The band's album art (most often by Vincent Locke) and lyrics, drawing heavily on horror fiction and horror films, are highly controversial. At different times, several countries, such as Germany and Russia, have banned Cannibal Corpse from performing within their borders, or have banned the sale and display of original Cannibal Corpse album covers.[7][8]
History
Members from earlier Buffalo-area death metal bands Beyond Death (Alex Webster, Jack Owen), Tirant Sin (Paul Mazurkiewicz, Chris Barnes, Bob Rusay), and Leviathan (Barnes) established the band in December 1988. The band played its first show at Buffalo's River Rock Cafe in March 1989, shortly after recording a five-song self-titled demo tape. Within a year of the first gig, the band was signed to Metal Blade Records, apparently after the label had heard the demo tape that the manager of the record store at which Barnes was working sent in.[9] Their full-length death metal debut album, Eaten Back to Life, was released in August 1990. Inspired by and seeking the new commercial and recording opportunities of the emerging Florida death metal scene, the band relocated to Tampa.[10]
The band has had several lineup changes. In February 1993, founding member and guitarist Bob Rusay was dismissed from the group (after which he became a golf instructor) and was ultimately replaced by Malevolent Creation guitarist Rob Barrett.[11] In 1995, during recording sessions for a new album, singer Chris Barnes was dismissed because of personal differences with the rest of the band[12] and was replaced by Monstrosity singer George "Corpsegrinder" Fisher. Barnes went on to perform with the band Six Feet Under and, later, Torture Killer.
In February 1997, Barrett, who had replaced Rusay on guitar, left Cannibal Corpse due to musical differences to re-join his previous bands Malevolent Creation, Solstice, and HatePlow. Pat O'Brien, who first appeared on Cannibal Corpse's 1998 release Gallery of Suicide, replaced Barrett. Founding member and guitarist Jack Owen left Cannibal Corpse in 2004 to spend more time on his second band, Adrift. He joined Deicide in late 2004. Jeremy Turner of Origin briefly replaced him as guitarist on 2004's Tour of The Wretched Spawn. Barrett re-joined the band for a concert at the Northwest Deathfest in Washington in 2005. [13]
Writing for the follow-up to Kill (2006) began in November 2007, as indicated in an interview with bassist Alex Webster.[14]Evisceration Plague, Cannibal Corpse's eleventh studio album was released February 3, 2009,[15] to a highly positive response from fans. They also released a live DVD in 2011 entitled Global Evisceration. Cannibal Corpse released its twelfth studio album, Torture, in March 2012.[16] Two early bands of the members reunited for one respective benefit concert each for Tony Lorenzo of the group Sons Of Azrael in January 2012. [17]
In February 2014, Cannibal Corpse announced that they had begun recording their thirteenth album, A Skeletal Domain, which was released on September 16. "Sadistic Embodiment" was released as a single in July. All the song titles of the forthcoming album were announced on the same day.[18] The same month, Metal Blade announced the publication of the band's authorized biography Bible Of Butchery, written by the British author Joel McIver.[19]
In an August 2016 interview, drummer Paul Mazurkiewicz stated that Cannibal Corpse would likely begin recording a new album in 2017.[20] In September 2017, the band announced their fourteenth studio album Red Before Black, which was released on November 3.[21]
On December 10, 2018, guitarist Pat O'Brien was arrested for assault and battery; his bail was set at $50,000.[22] On the eve of the news of his arrest, Cannibal Corpse was announced as one of the supporting acts for Slayer's final North American tour, which would take place in the spring of 2019 and also be supported by Lamb of God and Amon Amarth.[23] On January 18, 2019, Cannibal Corpse announced that Hate Eternal frontman and former Morbid Angel guitarist Erik Rutan would fill-in for O'Brien on their future tours.[24]
Cannibal Corpse entered the studio in June 2020 to begin recording their fifteenth studio album.[25] On February 1, 2021, the band announced that the album, Violence Unimagined, would be released on April 16.[26] They released a music video for the song "Inhumane Harvest" from the album in February. The music video was largely inspired by the Saw movie franchise.[27] The band also announced that live guitarist Erik Rutan has officially joined the band full-time,[28] in spite of that it is currently uncertain as to whether or not guitarist O'Brien will return to the group following his 2018 legal troubles.
By January 2023, Cannibal Corpse had begun working on their sixteenth studio album, which was listed by Revolver magazine as one of the "55 Most Anticipated Albums" of the year.[29] On 22 June, 2023, the band released a new single "Blood Blind" and announced their next record, Chaos Horrific, would be released on September 22, 2023.[30]
Controversy and publicity
United States
Cannibal Corpse have been subject to obscenity controversy since virtually the start of the group's career.
As of October 23, 1996, the sale of any Cannibal Corpse audio recording then available was banned in Australia and all copies of such had been removed from music shops.[33] At the time, the Australian Recording Industry Association and the Australian Music Retailers Association were implementing a system for identifying potentially offensive records, known as the "labelling code of practice".[34][35]
All ten of Cannibal Corpse's albums, the live album Live Cannibalism, the boxed set 15 Year Killing Spree, the EP Worm Infested, and the single "Hammer Smashed Face" were re-released in Australia between 2006 and 2007, finally classified by ARIA and allowed for sale in Australia. However, they are all "restricted" and only sold to those over 18 years of age. Some are sold in "censored" and "uncensored" editions, which denotes the change of cover art.[36] Despite this, when displayed in some stores, even the "uncensored" editions are censored manually.
All Cannibal Corpse albums up to and including Tomb of the Mutilated were banned upon release from being sold or displayed in Germany due to their graphic cover art and disturbing lyrics; the band was also forbidden to play any songs from those albums while touring in Germany.[38] This prohibition was not lifted until June 2006.[38] In a 2004 interview, George Fisher attempted to recall what originally provoked the ban:
"A woman saw someone wearing one of our shirts, I think she is a schoolteacher, and she just caused this big stink about it. So [now] we can't play anything from the first three records. And it really sucks because kids come up and they want us to play all the old songs— and we would— but they know the deal. We can't play 'Born in a Casket' but can play 'Dismembered and Molested'."[39]
Russia
Six of the eight planned shows from the band's 2014 Russian tour were canceled after protests from local Orthodox activists. A month before the tour, religious activist Dimitry Tsorionov said Cannibal Corpse's music was punishable under Russian law because it "incites religious division." He commented unfavorably on the lyrics, saying they promoted "death, violence, as well as various kinds of sexual perversion."[40] The gig in Nizhny Novgorod was stopped halfway through the set, after police conducted a search for drugs at the venue.[41] The concert in Saint Petersburg was canceled at the last minute because of unspecified "technical reasons", OMON arrived shortly after and arrested eighteen concertgoers.[42] Cannibal Corpse members stated that Russian authorities threatened to detain the members if they performed because they did not have the correct work visas.[41]
Responses to critics
Cannibal Corpse's lyrics and album/T-shirt artwork frequently feature transgressive and macabre imagery, including depictions of extreme violence and gore; the band has always defended this as artistic expression that is clearly fictional. In an interview for the documentary Metal: A Headbanger's Journey, George Fisher said that death metal is best understood "as art", and claims that far more violent art can be found at the Vatican, pointing out that such depictions are arguably more transgressive because they actually happened.[43] Some examples of Cannibal Corpse's controversial song titles include "I Cum Blood", "Meat Hook Sodomy", "Entrails Ripped from a Virgin's Cunt", "Necropedophile", "Stripped, Raped, and Strangled", "Addicted to Vaginal Skin", "Stabbed in the Throat", "Dismembered and Molested" and "Fucked with a Knife".[44]
On the same topic, George "Corpsegrinder" Fisher once said in an interview:
"We don't sing about politics. We don't sing about religion...All our songs are short stories that, if anyone would so choose they could convert it into a horror movie. Really, that's all it is. We like gruesome, scary movies, and we want the lyrics to be like that. Yeah, it's about killing people, but it's not promoting it at all. Basically these are fictional stories, and that's it. And anyone who gets upset about it is ridiculous."[45]
In response to accusations that his band's lyrics desensitize people to violence, Alex Webster argued death metal fans enjoy the music only because they know the violence depicted in its lyrics is not real:
"I think people probably aren't that desensitized to it, you know including myself, like you know, we sing about all this stuff and you watch a movie where you know it's not real and it's no big deal, but if you really saw someone get their brains bashed in right in front of you, I think it would have a pretty dramatic impact on any human being you know what I mean? Or some terrible, gross act of violence or whatever done right in front of you, I mean you'd react to it, no matter how many movies you've watched or how much gore metal you've listened to or whatever, I'm sure it's a completely different thing when it's right in front of you. Even though we've got crazy entertainment now, our social realities are actually a bit more civilized than they were back then, I mean we're not hanging people or whipping them in the street and I think that's positive improvement for any society in my opinion."[46]
He also believes the violent lyrics can have positive value: "It's good to have anger music as a release."[47] George Fisher explained the content of their songs: "There's nothing ever serious. We're not thinking of anybody in particular that we're trying to kill, or harm or anything."[48]
Six Feet Under is an American death metal band from Tampa, Florida, formed in 1993. The band consists of five members: founding vocalist Chris Barnes, guitarists Ray Suhy and Jack Owen, bassist Jeff Hughell and drummer Marco Pitruzzella. It was originally a side project formed by Barnes with guitarist Allen West of Obituary, but became a full-time commitment after Barnes was dismissed from Cannibal Corpse in 1995. Six Feet Under has released 13 albums, and is listed by Nielsen Soundscan as the fourth-best-selling death metal act in the U.S.
Chris Barnes is an American death metal vocalist. He is noted for his low growl vocals and explicitly violent lyrics. He was the co-founder, original lead vocalist and songwriter of Cannibal Corpse from 1988 to 1995, later founding and performing as part of Six Feet Under, and has appeared on Torture Killer's second album Swarm! Barnes designed the original Cannibal Corpse logo, the Six Feet Under logo and also created the artwork for Warpath, released in 1997.
George Fisher, better known by his stage name Corpsegrinder, is an American death metal vocalist who is the lead singer of Cannibal Corpse, Paths of Possession and the supergroup Serpentine Dominion.
Erik Rutan is an American heavy metal musician and producer from New Jersey. He is the guitarist and lead vocalist of death metal band Hate Eternal and lead guitarist for Cannibal Corpse, who he fully joined in 2021 after acting as a fill-in guitarist during their 2019 tour. Rutan has also spent time with Morbid Angel and Ripping Corpse. When not performing, Rutan operates his own recording studio in Florida called Mana Recording Studios.
Butchered at Birth is the second studio album by American death metal band Cannibal Corpse. It was released on July 1, 1991 through Metal Blade Records.
The Wretched Spawn is the ninth studio album by American death metal band Cannibal Corpse. It was released on February 24, 2004 by Metal Blade Records. The cover art is by Vincent Locke. This is the last studio album to feature guitarist Jack Owen, one of the band's founding members, and up to the 2012 album Torture, the last with an album cover depicting violence and gore. The album was distributed with a making-of DVD produced by Nick Sahakian. The Wretched Spawn is Cannibal Corpse's fourth album to be named after one of the tracks on the album, after Butchered at Birth, The Bleeding and Gallery of Suicide.
Eaten Back to Life is the debut studio album by American death metal band Cannibal Corpse. It was released on August 17, 1990, through Metal Blade Records.
The Bleeding is the fourth studio album by American death metal band Cannibal Corpse, released on April 12, 1994 through Metal Blade Records. It is the last album featuring singer and founding member Chris Barnes and is the first album featuring guitarist Rob Barrett. According to SoundScan numbers, The Bleeding is the fifth top-selling death metal LP in the United States, amassing over 98,300 copies sold. The Bleeding is also Cannibal Corpse's most successful album to date.
Bloodthirst is the seventh studio album by American death metal band Cannibal Corpse. It was released on October 19, 1999 through Metal Blade Records.
Gore Obsessed is the eighth studio album by American death metal band Cannibal Corpse, released on February 26, 2002 by Metal Blade Records.
Kill is the tenth studio album by American death metal band Cannibal Corpse, released on March 21, 2006 through Metal Blade Records. This release marks the return of guitarist Rob Barrett, who had previously played on The Bleeding and Vile. The European version of the album comes with a live DVD filmed in Strasbourg in 2004 called Hammer Smashed Laiterie. The album was produced at Mana Recording Studios by Hate Eternal and future Cannibal Corpse guitarist Erik Rutan. It is also the first album in which the band tuned down to G# standard.
Cannibal Corpse is a five-piece American death metal band formed in 1988 in Buffalo, New York. In 1989, their self-titled demo drew the attention of Metal Blade Records, with whom they signed a contract to record their debut album Eaten Back to Life, which was released in 1990, followed by two studio albums, 1991's Butchered at Birth, and 1992's Tomb of the Mutilated. In 1993, lead guitarist Bob Rusay was fired, and was replaced by Rob Barrett, who joined the group in time to appear with the band in Jim Carrey's film Ace Ventura: Pet Detective.
Pat O'Brien is an American guitarist best known as the former lead guitarist for death metal band Cannibal Corpse, a former member of heavy metal band Nevermore, and as a live guitarist a few times with Slayer and now Exhorder.
Centuries of Torment: The First 20 Years is the third video album by American death metal band Cannibal Corpse, released in 2008. It contains a three-hour documentary on the history of the band and several concert performances as extra features. It was released on July 8 in USA and July 14 in Europe. This DVD has also been certified platinum in Canada.
Evisceration Plague is the eleventh studio album by American death metal band Cannibal Corpse. Released on February 3, 2009 by Metal Blade Records, the album was produced at Mana Recording Studios by Hate Eternal guitarist Erik Rutan.
Torture is the twelfth studio album by American death metal band Cannibal Corpse, released on March 13, 2012 by Metal Blade Records. The album was produced at Sonic Ranch Studios by Hate Eternal guitarist Erik Rutan.
Serpentine Dominion is an American death metal supergroup consisting of Killswitch Engage lead guitarist Adam Dutkiewicz, Cannibal Corpse vocalist George "Corpsegrinder" Fisher and former The Black Dahlia Murder drummer Shannon Lucas. They released their debut album on October 28, 2016.
Red Before Black is the fourteenth studio album by American death metal band Cannibal Corpse, released on November 3, 2017. This is the band's final album to feature guitarist Pat O'Brien before producer Erik Rutan officially replaced him in 2021.
Violence Unimagined is the fifteenth studio album by American death metal band Cannibal Corpse, released on April 16, 2021. It is the band's first album in nearly four years since Red Before Black (2017), the longest gap between two records in Cannibal Corpse's career, and the first studio album to feature producer Erik Rutan on lead guitar, replacing Pat O'Brien in February 2021 after nearly two years of filling in for him on tour.
Chaos Horrific is the sixteenth studio album by American death metal band Cannibal Corpse, released on September 22, 2023, by Metal Blade.
↑ Weinraub, Bernard (June 1, 1995). "Films and Recordings Threaten Nation's Character, Dole Says". The New York Times. Retrieved February 6, 2009. Although the article seems to imply that Cannibal Corpse is a "rap group" rather than a metal band, it is one of the few reliable sources on the Internet for Dole's exact words.
↑ "Labelling Guidelines"(PDF). Labelling code of practice for recorded music containing potentially offensive lyrics and/or themes. Australian Music Retailers Association. March 2003. Archived from the original(PDF) on February 16, 2011. Retrieved February 6, 2009.
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