Cannibal Corpse - Evisceration Plague E.P.

February 16, 2009

Reviewer: Rottenbucher

Cannibal Corpse’s Kill came on strong but the ferocity didn’t have a lot of staying power.  A lot of the tracks seemed written by juiced-up rote and Rob Barrett’s return was underutilized.  3 years later and back again with Erik Rutan at the knobs, Evisceration Plague is everything Kill should have been and a lot more. And I’m not referring to the album’s swarming zombie cover either.

Opening with “Priests of Sodom,” Cannibal Corpse unloads both barrels with jaw-dropping tempo changes, brain-pulverizing riffs and an inspired performance from both Corpsegrinder and drummer Mazurkewicz.  But for those not wanting to be without endless blasts will find plenty to love in the brutal quickie “Scalding Hail.”  The O’Brien-penned “To Decompose” features his endless fret-feats, heaps of dense grooves and dizzying tempo changes.

“A Cauldron of Hate” again features dense chunks of swerving, skull liquefying riffs and probably the most audible bass since Tomb of the Mutilated.  The track moves from Doom-laden to thunderous to jack-hammering brilliance with moody solos and all around expert craftsmanship. “Beheaded and Burning” speeds things back up with its undulant riffs before the album returns to rather standard fair with “Evidence in the Furnace.”  “Carnivorous Swam” sways nicely between sickening speed and grinding grooves.  The title track conjures the barbaric, bellicose riffing of The Bleeding while proving that Cannibal Corpse can be just as brutal if they slow it down to a crawl.  Dense riff upon dense riff, the song speeds up for a few moments but overall the slimy crawl of the song is just beautifully brutal.

“Shatter Their Bones” surges with speed, gory groove and a flurry of swirling and sickening riffs. “Carrion Sculpted Entity” keeps up and continues this spectacular, ADD styled song structures while “Unnatural” is a pure prowess with thunderous speed and surging riffs.  “Skewered from Ear to Eye” simply slays with its Bloodthirst-style galloping groove.

To sum it up, Evisceration Plague finds Cannibal Corpse expanding with their song structures and finding out that they do not need to feature endless blasts to pulp their ravenous fanbases’ brains. This return to gut wrenching groove has been absent from the last few releases and it solidifies that this band is still atop of their game.  The blast beats are placed with surgical precision and pays off nicely.  Corpesgrinder can still vomit out a paragraph of splatter-friendly lyrics without as much as inhaling and the disc boasts Erik Rutan’s best production work to date.  With each instrument audible and allowing each artist to be heard, it just sounds fantastic.  But what really makes Evisceration Plague so good is the band has written flawless, career-defining tracks.  Some of the previous albums started to sound a bit rushed and a bit too focused on trying to speed along with all the other brutal, blast-heavy bands trying to dethrone Cannibal Corpse.  Evisceration Plague proves it cannot be done as this album is easily of the strongest and most varied discs of their impressive career. Evisceration Plague is essential sonic sickness.

Release Date: February 3rd, 2009
Label: Metal Blade Records

TRACK LISTING

1. Priests of Sodom
2. Scalding Hail
3. To Decompose
4. A Cauldron of Hate
5. Beheading and Burning
6. Evidence in the Furnace
7. Carnivorous Swarm
8. Evisceration Plague
9. Shatter Their Bones
10. Carrion Sculpted Entity
11. Unnatural
12. Skewered from Ear to Eye

Total playing time: 38:48

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