Cannibal Corpse

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Cannibal Corpse

Background information
Origin Buffalo, NY, USA
Genre(s) Death metal
Years active 1988 - present
Label(s) Metal Blade
Associated
acts
Six Feet Under
Monstrosity
Ceremony
Website Official Site
Members
George Fisher
Pat O'Brien
Rob Barrett
Alex Webster
Paul Mazurkiewicz
Former members
Jeremy Turner
Jack Owen
Bob Rusay
Chris Barnes

Cannibal Corpse is an American Death metal band founded in 1988. The band has since released 10 studio albums, one boxed set, and one live album. Although Cannibal Corpse had virtually no radio and television exposure, a cult following began to build behind the group with albums like 1991's Butchered at Birth and 1992's Tomb of the Mutilated.

Cannibal Corpse mostly draws influence from thrash metal bands, such as Slayer;[1] other death metal bands, such as Death, have also played a major role in establishing their sound.[1] Cannibal Corpse is known for their horror fiction-themed lyrics, and highly explicit album covers and song titles.

Contents

[edit] Biography

Cannibal Corpse formed from the ashes of three Buffalo-area death metal bands, Beyond Death (Webster, Owen), Leviathan (Barnes), and Tirant Sin (Barnes, Rusay, Mazurkiewicz). The band played their first show at Buffalo's River Rock Cafe in April 1989, shortly after recording a five-song demo tape Cannibal Corpse, aka Skull Full of Maggots. Within a year of that first gig, the band were signed to Metal Blade Records and their full-length, debut album, Eaten Back To Life, was released in August 1990.

Gallery of Suicide (1998), one of the band's gorier album covers.
Enlarge
Gallery of Suicide (1998), one of the band's gorier album covers.

Cannibal Corpse's music is known for its death grunt singing style. Like other death metal groups who have songs about rape, murder and necrophilia, the band's lyrics and the imagery on their album covers are often explicitly sexual and violent. Their albums were censored and banned in several countries; in Germany, they were not allowed to play any song from one of their first three albums in concert, not allowed to play at all in the state of Bavaria, not allowed to display the original cover images (drawn by Vincent Locke), nor to print the lyrics in their CD booklets.[citation needed] They were banned in Australia but were allowed in for a 2006 Tour.[citation needed]

Much like directors who helm zombie horror films, Cannibal Corpse prides itself on its graphic imagery as nothing more than an extreme form of over-the-top entertainment. As vocalist George "Corpsegrinder" Fisher comments in the music documentary Metal: A Headbanger's Journey, "it's art, just look at it as art. Yeah, it's disgusting, ... but go to the Vatican and look at some of the art there. That's real, that's representing something that's real, that could happen. This [artwork], you know, that's never going to happen ... monsters aren't going to rip out of people's bodies anytime soon".

Fisher also stated his frustration in an interview regarding the DADV of live performances of certain songs, saying "We can play 'Dismembered and Molested' in Germany but we cannot play 'Born in a Casket'. Which one sounds worse?" Song titles include "Entrails Ripped From a Virgin's Cunt", "Fucked With A Knife", "Meat-Hook Sodomy", and "Necropedophile". In May 1995, then-Senator Bob Dole mentioned the band by name and accused them of violating human decency. Cannibal Corpse also enjoyed a brief cameo in the 1994 Jim Carrey film Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, performing their song "Hammer Smashed Face." (Carrey actually insisted that the band perform in the movie because he was a fan of the band.)[2]

In 1995, Chris Barnes departed from the band for musical differences (he is now the vocalist of Six Feet Under and Torture Killer) and was replaced with Monstrosity's vocalist George "Corpsegrinder" Fischer, who is known for his record-long screams in songs such as "Devoured by Vermin" and "They Deserve to Die." Jack Owen left Cannibal Corpse in 2004 to spend more time on his second band, Adrift. He joined Deicide in late 2005. Jeremy Turner of Origin briefly replaced him as second guitarist on 2004's "Tour of the Wretched". Recently Rob Barrett, a former member of Cannibal Corpse who appeared on the band's albums Vile and The Bleeding rejoined the band to play festivals in the Northwest United States and Europe. Rob officially left Malevolent Creation and joined Cannibal Corpse. Their latest album, Kill, was released March 21, 2006 on Metal Blade Records.

[edit] Members

[edit] Current

[edit] Previous

[edit] Discography

[edit] Demos

[edit] Studio albums

[edit] EPs

[edit] Compilation albums

[edit] Live albums

[edit] References

  1. ^ a b Steve Huey. Cannibal Corpse biography. allmusic.com. Retrieved on 2006-12-13.
  2. ^ IMDb.com Carrey's Biography, Trivia section. Retrieved on 20 June 2006.

[edit] External links