Death metal may be a novelty, but Cannibal Corpse is no late-blooming trend -- it's definitely no "Macarena."
And if you disagree, then after you die, may your spine be sharpened to an evil point to massacre the seventh son of the seventh son with utmost haste and guttural disgust ... or may your favorite band break up, whichever comes first.
Either way, death metal's driving force of debauchery and audio revulsion, Cannibal Corpse, is pile-driving into town Thursday at the Nile Theater in Mesa, whether your splatter bibs are in position or not.
With a lead singer named Corpsegrinder and a new album dubbed Gore Obsessed, the Cannibal's sonic macabre of bleeding hearts, skull-bludgeoning terror and oozing metamorphosis can only give rise to the most strong-stomached and hard-boiled deathheads.
I mean, come on, some of the group's album covers include playful cartoons of a zombie tearing his ribs from his own chest, decapitated bodies, lacerated limbs, barbaric butchery and more red than Enron's checkbook.
It's all in good fun though, especially in its boulder-pounding delivery, complete with double-bass blitzkriegs, razor-wire guitar stranglings and gut-upturned vocal growls.
Really, it's theatrics, like Alice Cooper and Marilyn Manson, but in it's own special way -- with more buckets of blood, measures more of insanity and growling lyrical aggression sprinkled with romantic wordplay (from "Force Fed Broken Glass": flesh starts to rip/gouging through skin/from the throat blood gushes/glandular eruption/blistered skin secretion/internal punctures/blood regurgitation).
Besides, what else would describe jolly ol' Cannibal tunes "Hammer-Smashed Face," "Edible Autopsy," "Skull Full of Maggots," or "Devoured by Vermin"? Yep, "the horror" will do.
Ignoring the devastation the band kicks up in its disrespectful sprint through life's garden, Cannibal Corpse is also a talented band that can bring ultra-tense melodies and vibrant harmonies into layers of schizophrenic ramblings.
All stacked up, what is coming to us Thursday is far more repugnant and skilled than most ears would allow.
So why get all mushy about a death metal band? A death metal band that hasn't cured cancer, played for an Oprah charity, won Nobel acclaim for pacifism or sucked the cool right out of Dave Matthews' career?
Answer: Rejection of the norm.
Any group that disobediently thrives on filth just because it's louder, faster, deeper and infinitely more violent deserves respect.
And not that Cannibal Corpse was the first death metal band to wage war on trends and "cool" styles, oh no. But the band is the most impressive group on the death metal scene, and you can see them on Thursday.
It's true that the band sometimes succumbs to overly gory, fleshed-out mayhem, some of which goes tendons and bones beyond bad taste. But you have to recognize the caustic, exaggerated ideas a death metal band pounds out as nothing more than deserving consternation.
Just look at song titles on Tomb of the Mutilated, you'll know what I mean. None of them can be printed here. In fact, most can't even be printed on the back of the CD.
But that's a small price to pay for originality, for senselessness, for cannibalism.
More than just the heavyweight of gruesome thrills and eviscerated nightmares, Cannibal Corpse is a household addiction for anyone who has silently sunk their musical tastes from brisk mainstream currents to the muddy bottom, where bellowing madness like this rests.
At least down there I don't have to hear one more pansy Radiohead song, one more soggy Puddle of Mudd turd, or one more example of Linkin Park silliness.
Sometimes the bottom is better.
Michael Clawson is a journalism junior. Reach him at michael.clawson@asu.edu.
