Album review: Cannibal Corpse – Chaos Horrific

In the very week that the 10th instalment of the Saw franchise hits cinemas with a splatter and a slop, Cannibal Corpse also make a similar return with their 15th sequel. One may wonder what, if anything, either enterprise brings to the operating table. Really, this isn’t the point and you shouldn’t give a shit. You don’t get into either for the highly-cerebral plot, do you? It’s all about the killings. On Chaos Horrific, even if the band’s more graphic tendencies have been left in the toolbox – here only Pitchfork Impalement properly squares up to the best/worst of their classic horrible titles – they’re still aiming for a body count higher than a war.

Produced by new-ish guitarist Erik Rutan (Morbid Angel, Hate Eternal), there’s a sharp, deadly edge to everything that gives the beefy riffs an extra layer of wickedness. George ‘Corpsegrinder’ Fisher remains absolutely incomprehensible, but still nobody does it better, while the supply of riffs is apparently still bountiful. So it is that the frenzied, uh, Frenzied Feeding and textbook ‘Corpse opener Overlords Of Violence are brutally crazed and oddly comforting in their familiarity, while the thrashing title-track is about as straight-ahead as CC are ever going to get, offering a change of pace without actually changing much. It’s all very good.

You don’t ask a master butcher to start baking cakes. Like Motörhead, the Ramones, AC/DC or, indeed, Friday The 13th, it’s Cannibal Corpse’s Cannibal Corpse-y ness that keeps them at the top of their game. Far from starting to decompose, killing is still CC’s business. And business remains very good – and macabre – indeed.

Verdict: 4/5

For fans of: Undeath, Dying Fetus, Gatecreeper

Chaos Horrific is out now via Metal Blade