Cannibal Corpse Eaten Back to Life from 1990 is the first album from the band that would eventually become the biggest selling Death Metal band of all time. I have to say based on the strength of this album I wouldn’t have picked it at the time. But to be fair the head of Metal Blade records DID pick this one out from what one could assume would have been piles of aspiring bands coming across his desk, and chose to put out their debut record. Not to say there’s anything particularly wrong with it. It’s good, old school death metal. The recording on this is a little of the rough side, but still very listenable.
I’m not sure how this sold at the time, but from my understanding it was just a few of the local grunts in the scene that were buying their stuff. The Cover art looks amaturish (Vincent Locke went on to become of the more recognisable and better known artists in metal after the later success of the band) and the song titles made it pretty obvious the band was trying to be as offensive as possible. Like I said the music contained on this recording was pretty decent, but there was far better material out there at the time such as Deicide, Morbid Angel, Maleveolent Creation etc.. but this served as a good intro to the band for those that did buy it. I personally don’t feel it deserves any sort of legendary status.
Song wise, this is very stock standard Death Metal. There’s quite a few good hooks and while everything is technically quite proficient, bands like Obituary etc… had recognisable sounds, choruses and hooks. Not a lot particularly stood out about this one, but like I said, some decent hooks and the beginnings of the brilliance that would follow from this band.. For My money “Mangled” and “Scattered Remains, Splattered Brains” and of course “Skull Full of Maggots” were actually quite memorable and stood out from the other tracks on this album.
After the criticisms I’ve levelled at this one so far, I have to say it’s a great journey back in time to when a legendary band such as this was still finding their feet.It’s kind of cute in a way. The hints of the band’s future brilliance are definitley here but are still being refined by a band that was obviously still honing their craft.
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