Vile was recorded at Morrisound Recording in Tampa, Florida by Scott Burns. It was the band's last album to be done by him, and was also the last album featuring guitarist Rob Barrett until 2006's Kill. The album had a tumultuous production process, as original vocalist Chris Barnes was dismissed from the band during its recording sessions and replaced by George Fisher of Monstrosity. Fisher stated that he did not know for certain that he had been hired for the band until after the album had been completed. Vile became the band's first release to chart on the US Billboard 200, reaching number 151.
Musically, Vile largely abandons the groove element that defined its predecessor The Bleeding, instead opting for a style more consistent with brutal death metal. Despite this, the album's cover artwork and song titles are considered to be less extreme as on previous releases by the band. The album explores psychological horror themes in addition to graphic violence.
The album was re-released in 2006 with new liner notes and a bonus DVD (titled "Vile Live") featuring a full concert from the Vile tour, during which many songs from the album are performed.
Background and recording
Vile was originally titled Created to Kill (which is featured in the Cannibal Corpse Box set) and had partially been completed, with Chris Barnes having tracked vocals for seven songs. During the album's production, Barnes was dismissed from the band due to creative differences. Drummer Paul Mazurkiewicz said, "I think over a period of time he saw Cannibal Corpse as being his property, and he would do things in his way, never listening to anyone else and never yielding from his viewpoint. [...] He had a way of doing things, and that had worked – until then. But, quite honestly, when we heard what Chris was doing vocally on the new record, all of us knew we had a serious problem on our hands."[2]
The band had also expressed dissatisfaction with Barnes' lyrics he had written for the album. According to Mazurkiewicz, the style Barnes was still using didn't fit with how the band wanted to progress. They attempted to help with writing lyrics, but Barnes was stubborn about it.[3] Mazurkiewicz recalled fighting with Barnes to rewrite lines to fit the song better, stating "Barnes pushed back like we were stepping all over him like it was his poetry we were ruining."[4] Bassist Alex Webster recalled that they wanted phrases and rhythms that fit with the riffs, commenting "I think a lot of the problem was that Chris didn’t practice with the band too much, that he didn’t really pay attention to the riffs, and he would just write stuff that went over the top of it instead of actually working with it. And now that the band is helping write the lyrics, I think that you can hear that they mesh better."[5]
Mazurkiewicz recalled one of their last conversations with Barnes being about wanting to support him, but "the final straw" was their disappointment with the lyrics he wrote for "Devoured by Vermin", especially since they wanted the opening song to have a strong impact. Webster bluntly told Barnes that he would rewrite the lyrics, which devastated Barnes[3] and prompted him to walk out of the studio. This would be his last day,[4] with Mazurkiewicz stating "We just knew Chris had to go – that was the only thing to do. So, we phoned him when he was on the road and said, ‘Dude, you’re out.’ It was as simple as that. None of us could live with what he’d done in the studio, and we knew there was no way he’d change. The problem we had was where to go next."[3]
To replace Barnes, the band hired Monstrosity vocalist George "Corpsegrinder" Fisher to re-record the former's vocal tracks, with the rest of the band sharing duties rewriting the lyrics. Fisher recalls feeling extremely nervous during his first vocal tracking sessions with the band. He said: "It felt like the world was finally gonna know who I was and I’d wanted that for so long. But I remember that I lost control of my voice at first and could see the guys in the control room looking like ‘did we make the right choice?’ and I was nervous. I went into the bathroom and told myself ‘you know you can do this, so do the damn song’. Rob had pushed so hard for me to join, like ‘George is the only guy that can do this’ and that first scream you hear is the first one I did when I walked back into the room."[6]
In addition to issues with Barnes during the album's production, Lee Harrison of Monstrosity recounted to Hells Headbangers Records co-founder Justin Horval in a 2026 interview that he was asked by Rob Barrett to perform drums on the album in place of Mazurkiewicz because the latter was struggling to record the album's material. According to Harrison: "Barrett was living with me and so like he's going off with Cannibal and at the time, [and] he was complaining. [...] Whatever. Rob wasn't happy with Paul's drumming at the time, you know. So he would come back from tours and be like kind of grumbling. [...] He's like, 'Dude, man, you're gonna have to, you know, we're going to need you probably [...] because Paul ain't cutting it.' [...] And if you know, like if you notice, there's like no tom-fills on Vile. [...] Everything's like 'bumbumbumbumbum... Bum!'"[7]
Mazurkiewicz ultimately still appeared on the album. Fisher made few contributions to the album due to time constraints. Webster and Mazurkiewicz, who had contributed lyrics in some capacity on the band's debut album, assumed lyrical duties in Barne's absence. Mazurkiewicz recalled, "We were flying by the seat of our pants, but got the job done. We both enjoyed getting involved with that side of the songs. Chris had never previously allowed anyone else near the lyrics."[8]
During the Vile sessions, "The Undead Will Feast" from Eaten Back to Life was re-recorded with Fisher on vocals. This version of the song would first appear as the only bonus track on a Japanese import edition of Vile and then on the Worm Infested EP in 2003.[citation needed]
Music and lyrics
The album is seen as a return to the brutal death metal sound of the band's previous releases with hints of technical death metal, and as a departure from the catchier groove-oriented style of The Bleeding. Both it and its followup Gallery Of Suicide and The Wretched Spawn are considered by fans as the band's most technical releases. Greg Pratt of Exclaim! said, "Vile practically mocks that album's groove and open space with an oppressive onslaught of full-on, no-nonsense, blinders-on extreme metal."[9] Chris Krovatin of Kerrang! wrote: "Though the band’s sound had beguns to enter the horrific, kinetic tone that it would champion from here on, on Vile it retains some of the insulated basement-track production of Cannibal’s early releases."[10] The album has been noted for its complex song structures.[11]
According to Malcolm Dome of Metal Hammer, "[ George Fisher's] vocals seemed to feed off the dynamism, freshness and vitality that lit up the music."[12] Cannibal Corpse bassist Alex Webster said: "[Fisher] was exactly what we wanted. If you listen to bands like Kreator and Dark Angel, they have that really rapid-fire vocal delivery and George was able to do that in a [death metal] way. We wanted the Tom Araya of [death metal] and we found him!"[13]Loudwire described his scream at the beginning of "Devoured by Vermin" as a "tortured shriek".[14]
Vile is the band's first album to use Bb standard tuning, as opposed to Eb standard tuning on all prior releases (although a few of the album's tracks are in C# standard).[15]
Vincent Jefferies of Allmusic noted Vile's album art and song titles, while "gruesome and extreme to the max", are "toned down" in comparison to previous releases by the band.[16] Fisher described the album's fifth track “Bloodlands" as having more of a psychological horror theme as opposed to the usual graphic violence themes of earlier releases.[17]
AllMusic wrote "Fisher brought a vocal dynamism and character that livened up the band's six-year-old sound. Fisher's ability to match the musical intensity and rhythm of Vile's more complicated assemblages of riffs created a more sophisticated yet equally tortuous essence."[18]
Vile was the first death metal album to appear on the Billboard 200 chart, debuting at No. 151.[21] Cannibal Corpse drummer Paul Mazurkiewicz said, "It may have been partly due to the leg work we’d done with The Bleeding, and also because we’d matured as a band as well. But it was a great moment when Vile charted. Here was proof that people had embraced what we were doing, in bigger numbers than ever. And it was a vindication of our decision to bring in the new man." He believes Vile to be a turning point in the band's history, and possibly one of the band's most crucial releases. He said, "we ditched so much of our past and went towards an uncertain future. It could have backfired badly. But thankfully it worked. Without [the album] and everything that happened while we did it, we might never have survived into the 21st century."[22]
Created to Kill was eventually released as part of the band's official boxset. According to Mazurkiewicz, "Virtually everyone who’s heard these has the same reaction: ‘No wonder you had to get rid of Barnes.’ [...] I’ve yet to come across anyone who rates them as better than what’s on Vile. We didn’t put them on to embarrass Chris at all. But they are part of our history, and have become quite celebrated over the years. It was a chance for people to make up their own minds. [...] This band tries to keep everything we do, because it’s part of what we are – no matter how awful we might feel it to be."[23]
In 2020, Chris Krovatin of Kerrang! wrote: "The mixture of fast-paced numbers like 'Mummified In Barbed Wire' and uncommonly slow tracks like 'Bloodlands' confused some fans, but shows the band taking awesome risks that would pay off in their evolution. And then, there’s the cover, arguably Vincent Locke’s masterpiece and perhaps the greatest example of an album's art matching its title."[10]
In 2024, Joe DiVita of Loudwire ranked Vile as the worst Cannibal Corpse album. He wrote: "Building on Barnes' foundation, Corpsegrinder brought a more intelligible delivery along with unquestionably better high screams. The hype surrounding ‘Vile’ wound up proving to be insurmountable and Corpse handed in a musically competent record marred by a hollow production and a lack of personality that the Barnes era had in spades."[24]
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