The story of Cannibal Corpse, an underground band from Buffalo just over the Canadian border, is the story of a band becoming successful the old-fashioned way. Born in 1989, the band recorded one demo and signed to Metal Blade. Without management, money or much hoopla the band's over the top image and lyrics aided by incessant touring and a musical violence dear to the fans, catapults Cannibal Corpse to make a name for itself in the underground and eventually all of the metal scene.

The band's cause was not hampered at all by the decisions of right-wing US institutions like the PMRC, Bob Dole, 700 Club and a whole list of others to target the band. Oddly enough the Corpse had its biggest set back in Germany where a group of teachers and parents lead an attack on the band resulting in several songs being banned in that country. The band's gore-soaked covers are routinely censored in the USA; many appearing in two versions. The band also appears in the movie Pet Detective as per request of fan/star Jim Carey.

The band's original guitar Rusay left, ostensibly because of a lack of musicianship, but the band marched on. Furthermore it was during the recording of Vile that the increasingly distant Barnes ended up making his side project a focus and left the band. The band recruited old friend Corpsegrinder and much to the surprise of the fans continued in much the same manner as before. For until that day the fans and media were left to believe that Chris Barnes (now exclusively in Six Feet Under) was the source of the savagery and gore in the band's music. Lo and behold the tradition's continuation in Cannibal Corpse, while Six Feet Under came across as a toned down death metal act.

The band, which left the cold and debris of Buffalo long ago for Florida, had consistently worked with producer Scott Burns at Tampa's Morrisound Studio until the band hired producer Colin Richardson. Furthermore Gore Obsessed displayed the band's devotion to its roots and is produced by Neil Kernon. The band released an EP entitled Worm Infested in the autumn of 2002. This EP was made exclusively available on-line or on the road during the band's tour with Macabre and Cattle Decapitation. Cannibal Corpse reached the one million sale mark in 2003. The band planned to begin recording a new album with producer Neil Kernon towards the end of 2003. The death metallers would celebrate the band's fifteenth anniversary with the release of a four-disc box set containing three CDs and a DVD in late 2003. It was entitled 15-Year Killing Spree and was out in November. At the same time the band's label announced that Cannibal Corpse has sold a total of one million albums in total. Around the same time guitarist Jack Owen and drummer Paul Mazurkiewicz announced a new side-project called Path Of Man, which also featured Helstar/Seven Witches frontman James Rivera. The band's first gig was due to be at a James Murphy benefit show on September 6 in St. Petersburg, Florida.

It was announced in late 2003 that the forthcoming album will be entitled The Wretched Spawn and will be out in February, 2004. A couple of song titles were Decency Defied and Cianide Assassin. The band lined up a tour with Hypocrisy and Vile for that time period. Furthermore, Jack Owen and former Resurrection and Epitaph drummer Kevin Astl formed a hard rock band called Adrift around this time. This soon led to Owen's departure from the fold. He cited a lack of interest in death metal as the reason for his departure. Former Origin guitarist Jeremy turner provisionally joined the act, following which the cannibals hit South America. Around this time ex-guitarist Jack Owen toured with Deicide as the latter's Brian Hoffman had to miss several European shows.

Singer George "Corpsegrinder" Fischer was hospitalized on Tuesday, November 16th of 2004 due to an infection. He soon was reported recovered. Malevolent Creation's Rob Barrett rejoined the band for a performance at the Northwest Death Fest in Seattle on April 3rd, 2005. He had left the band seven years previous. He ended up becoming a member again. Kill was recorded from October to December of 2005 at Mana Studio with producer Erik Rutan. Alex Webster rejoined Hate Eternal in 2007 in order to play bass on that band’s newest album. The band announced the release of a three-disc DVD, Centuries Of Torment The First 20 Years, on July 8th 2008 through Metal Blade.

CANNIBAL CORPSE - THE WRETCHED SPAWN - METAL BLADE
Note: In order to combat bootlegging and advance internet availability Metal Blade has shipped the promotional version of Cannibal Corpse's The Wretched Spawn with what it calls 'audio interruption.' In other words, the label has saddled this CD with a series of beeps which act as interruption and static at random points. A reviewer, therefore, has to sit through several hours of annoying beeps in order to properly review this album.
This tactic is analogous to others used with increasing frequency by this and other labels to combat music piracy.
Metal Blade recently only shipped a three-song version of the latest King Diamond album. Smart outlets ignored that wee CD and the label eventually shipped a full version. Earache has shipped CDs with songs chopped into dozens of different tracks in order to combat digital propagation. Nuclear Blast has been known to fade out songs prematurely on promotional CDs and Osmose licensed anti-piracy technology for all its CDs. This latter trick soon ended when disc owners discovered the magic effects of magic markers.
To cut to the chase, record labels are pleading loss of revenue and war against internet piracy as the reason for their actions. Fair enough, after all all these claims are verifiable and the labels and bands are victims, right?
Let's take a closer look. First, annoying the media will not alleviate internet piracy. These are the same people mandated to take the label's message to the public. The recording industry needs more friends and less alienated members of the public. Second, it was the same industry that imposed the digital evolution upon the public. Anyone recalls the mass demonstrations and sit-ins against LPs and in favour of CDs by members of the public? No? That is because there were none. It was the industry that ensured its future losses by forcing the consumer off LP and onto the CD format. It admittedly had a good reason to do so. After all, shipping costs came down, the stores where happier with the increased storage and display room and many fans went out and repurchased titles they already owned on CD. The labels, consequently, sold the same consumer the same album twice and pocketed the money. The CD was also marked higher than the LP even though the manufacturing costs were not higher once mass acceptance had set in. In short, the labels initiated their own long-term misery, through higher margins in the short-term. The behaviour is analogous to cancer. The actions of the cells eventually brings about their own demise.
It is now 2003 and sales are down. The record labels are crying foul. CDs were meant to prompt fans to repurchase music, bring shipping costs down, improve inventory and supply chain and make the industry more money. Instead the labels and musicians feel they are being stolen from. This however is not the whole story. Many of the same labels are also profiteering from the great internet digital exchange. Take Sony for example. The record label might be losing some money to the internet, but it is making much back by selling mp3 players. Did they think the public won't notice? Time Warner is another conglomerate complaining about lower sales. No word whether its AOL or internet cable sub-divisions are seeing increased demand and subscriber numbers from fans needing internet access or ordering more expensive higher bandwidth options in order to accommodate down and uploading.
The next point requires a trip to 1982. The recording industry of that time was also in the doldrums. Music sales were down. A closer look at the spending habits of the music-buying public revealed that the money had shifted from buying music to the arcades. That's right, kids were taking their LP/MC money and were instead shooting asteroids. Twenty years later, it is easy to make a similar comparison. Some of the money that would have been spent on CDs is being spent on what the market currently deems hipper alternatives. What is it that has replaced buying music? One look around will tell any dispassionate observer that the answer includes the internet, gaming and movies. So who makes money from DVD sales, online chat, following Nemo on the big and small screen or PS2 sales? The same folk who are crying over lost music sales. In other words, the situation is not even as dire as the early 80's when a consumer drift had shifted the spending out of the domain of the recording industry. In contrast, the current shift in spending habits has only rotated the spending from one subsidiary of Sony, Warner or Universal to another i.e. from the music division to the movie or gaming sides.
The recording industry's case is weak enough that neither a discussion of the quality of much of the music released by the recording industry nor the devaluation of the music by industry-owned licensing schemes and music clubs is warranted. In fact, it is ludicrous that the labels came to the digital music exchange business dead last and after being forced to do so by entrepreneurial innovative enterprises like napster et al.
Hopefully point made and let us proceed with the Cannibal Corpse review which prompted the discussion in the first place.
So they do exist... death metal bands that do not wimp beep out. Cannibal Corpse is the proof.
The Wretched Spawn is Cannibal Corpse's tenth album beep and the music, the lyrics, the album's title and artwork indicate a band hell-bent on its original ideals, mission and power. The band changes the tempo from song to song, but somehow it all works. In fact, the band sounds more at ease with itself than ever. Be beep it a fast song, a slow song, a guitar solo or whatever, the death metal veterans come across as comfortable, confident and secure in their art. The Wretched Spawn beep does not leave room for much criticism, but if better songs have to be cited they would be Severed Head Stoning and Frantic Disembowelment beep. Then there is the frantic solo on the title track which simply rips. Another noteworthy mention goes to the production. Neil Kernon has bestowed the band with a warm and thick sound beep worthy of a death metal band. The beep drums, in particular, are heavy and full.
The Wretched Spawn is a potent offering. The beep band has given birth to an album that is beep sure to propel its stock even higher than before. - Ali "The Metallian"