Cannibal Corpse

Emerging in 1990, Cannibal Corpse quickly established themselves among the most polarizing and impactful acts in death metal history through their intense blend of rapid blastbeats, guttural singing, and themes steeped in extreme violence. The band’s embrace of splatter-horror visuals produced album covers and track names that sparked repeated disputes and occasional outright bans across multiple decades, yet this same unapologetic, macabre approach cultivated a fiercely devoted audience. Releases such as Gore Obsessed (2002), Torture (2012), and Violence Unimagined (2021) cemented their position among the genre’s highest-selling outfits, a trajectory extended by their sixteenth studio album, Chaos Horrific, which arrived in 2023.

The group coalesced in Buffalo, New York, in 1988, drawing its original membership from local music circles: vocalist Chris Barnes, guitarists Bob Rusay and Jack Owen, bassist Alex Webster, and drummer Paul Mazurkiewicz. Their sound drew closest parallels to Slayer while incorporating elements from more extreme acts like Death. A 1989 demo tape earned them a deal with Metal Blade Records, which issued the debut full-length Eaten Back to Life in 1990. Momentum built with Butchered at Birth (1991), Tomb of the Mutilated (1992), and the 1993 EP Hammer Smashed Face. Rusay departed that same year; ex-Malevolent Creation guitarist Rob Barrett stepped in and appeared with the band as a club act in the Jim Carrey film Ace Ventura: Pet Detective.

Barrett made his recorded debut on the comparatively accessible 1994 album The Bleeding, Barnes’s final outing with the group. Vile (1996) introduced ex-Monstrosity frontman George “Corpsegrinder” Fisher. The band maintained activity through the remainder of the decade, issuing Gallery of Suicide in 1998 and Bloodthirst the following year. In 2000 they released both a concert film and the live album Live Cannibalism, their first official live LP. Gore Obsessed surfaced in 2002, followed by the career-spanning box set 15 Year Killing Spree. Wretched Spawn arrived in 2004 and Kill in 2006. Returning to the studio with producer Erik Rutan of Hate Eternal, the band delivered Evisceration Plague in early 2009, their highest-charting release to date. Two years later came the concert film Global Evisceration, succeeded by the studio album Torture in 2012. Their thirteenth album, A Skeletal Domain, entered the U.S. Billboard 200 at number 32 upon release in 2014.

After extensive touring, members branched into side endeavors: Fisher formed Serpentine Dominion alongside Killswitch Engage guitarist Adam D and former the Black Dahlia Murder drummer Shannon Lucas, while Jack Owen joined Six Feet Under, fronted by former Cannibal Corpse vocalist Chris Barnes. The core lineup reconvened in 2017 at Erik Rutan’s Mana Recording Studios in Florida to track Red Before Black, their fourteenth album. The Zev Deans-directed video single “Code of the Slashers” preceded the November release, which coincided with a national tour alongside Power Trip and Gatecreeper. Rutan subsequently joined as permanent guitarist and appeared on the 2021 album Violence Unimagined. In 2023 the band issued a limited-edition reissue of the 1993 EP Hammer Smashed Face before unveiling Chaos Horrific that September, again recorded by Rutan shortly after the prior album’s sessions.