Vince Locke's bloodthirsty artwork could hardly be more perfect. Humans and zombies are battling it out in a blur of blood and severed flesh. One man raises an axe in murderous triumph. Another shoots a zombie directly in the face at point-blank range. Lower down in the scene, several other humans are having an absolutely terrible time at the hands of the undead. If you want death, here it is.
When a new Cannibal Corpse album arrives, the likelihood that anyone is going to survive with their organs, limbs or skull intact is slender indeed. In truth, Cannibal Corpse have been going at it with such ferocity and force for so long that they really should be knackered by now. Instead, Chaos Horrific is every bit as virile, violent and vile as 2020’s Violence Unimagined, and may even be a teensy bit heavier and more extreme.
This band are an imperious, tweaked-to-perfection wrecking machine at this point. Sure, there are faster bands, heavier bands and arguably more adventurous bands too, but as they prove again, within the opening seconds of Overlords Of Violence, Cannibal Corpse are still the hardest hitters in the business.
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Resistance is useless. This rips from start to finish. Frenzied Feeding is fast, furious and as terrifying as its title suggests. Summoned For Sacrifice is a wild, macabre melodrama, dominated by one of those peerless slowas-fuck riffs (think the 2012 Torture album’s Scourge Of Iron) that briefly make the world seem a better place.
Vengeful Invasion is appropriately unrelenting and grim for a song about victims of human trafficking exacting revenge on their exploiters. The title track combines oddball riffs with a lethal chorus that vocalist George ‘Corpsegrinder’ Fisher is audibly relishing. Everything else will stab you up without blinking. The horror never stops, so neither do Cannibal Corpse. Bloody marvellous.
Chaos Horrific is out September 22 via Metal Blade
