Thursday, March 15, 2012

Album Review: Cannibal Corpse-Torture

Cannibal Corpse are the most popular death metal band of all-time and for good reason. For almost 25 years they have been releasing some of the heaviest music on the planet and have not slowed down at all during that time. Their new record (the 12th of their career) Torture is no exception to the rule.

Torture is exactly what you've come to expect from a Cannibal Corpse album, which is a both a good and a bad thing. It's heavy as hell, filled with plenty of gore lyrics and tight musicianship, and cleanly produced by Erik Rutan of Hate Eternal (who has produced the last three Cannibal Corpse albums). On the other hand, much like it's predecessor Evisceration Plague, the album is mostly just solid and rarely reaches the heights of greatness. There are a few tracks on here that do rise above the rest and pack a pretty damn big punch. "Scourge of Iron" is without a doubt, the finest song on Torture. It starts off with a really slow and heavy riff and maintains it's brutality throughout it's near  5-minute duration. That song is just death metal bliss. Album opener "Demented Aggression" is a 3-minute blast of intensity that gets album started on a very-high note. "Crucifier Avenged" and "The Strangulation Chair" (which has an absolutely badass bass solo from Alex Webster) roundout the standout tracks with crazed energy and you guessed it, more ear-shattering heaviness.

Unfortunately, these are the only awesome tracks on the album. Like I said earlier, the rest of the album is pretty good, but it's not fantastic. This has been a recurring pattern in Cannibal Corpse's music for a while now. With the exception of 2006's Kill (which is my favorite Cannibal Corpse album ever), every album since Corpsegrinder has joined the band has been like this. Don't get me wrong, it's not like any of these albums have been awful, it's just that don't really maintain consistency throughout. There are some awesome songs and the rest of the album is just pretty good.

Torture is just another Cannibal Corpse album. It's consistently good, but not great with flashes of excellence on a select few songs. No question Cannibal Corpse can still make heavy as fuck music with plenty of raw aggression and strong musicianship all-around. I just wish they would make a whole album full of songs that could maintain the quality of tracks like "Scourge of Iron" and "Demented Aggression" from start to finish. They still have the potential to make another excellent release, they just need string together a bunch of killer tracks, instead of just a few. Torture is another solid release from Cannibal Corpse, I just hope they can improve on this on their next go-round and use their immense potential to make something truly special and live up to their icon status.

3.5/5 Stars
Standout Tracks
1.Scourge of Iron
2.Demented Aggression
3.Cruicfier Avenged

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