Cannibal Corpse
November 13, 2017
The Observatory – Santa Ana, CA
Cannibal Corpse are a legendary death metal band from New York. They have released fourteen albums of pure death metal and have been destroying their fans’ eardrums ever since. Their newest album, Red Before Black, was released on November 3, 2017. Cannibal Corpse has had a long history of controversy such as being banned from countries like Germany and Russia as well as having their album covers being banned or censored due to them being controversial. Even with that, they are currently the top-selling death metal band of all time with a combined sale of over two million albums. Cannibal Corpse announced a USA tour in support of their new album. The Southern California stop was the Observatory in Santa Ana, California and even on a Monday night, the venue was packed with dedicated metalheads.
Gatecreeper and Power Trip had warmed up the audience with a thrash metal assault and was now time for the death metal masters to take the stage. Cannibal Corpse came out and started the show with Code of the Slashers from the new album. Cannibal Corpse showed their audience that they have not slowed down the brutality of their music. Their fans responded really well as a mosh pit quickly formed and soon after, crowd surfers stayed plentiful throughout the show. The second song performed was the first track from the new album, Only One Will Die.
The third song played was another new song and the album’s title track, Red Before Black. Fans welcomed the new songs as they moshed away and crowd surfers kept the security on their toes. The fourth song performed was Scourge of Iron and it is one of the band’s slower songs, but it is catchy and lots of head banging could be seen from the audience. Singer George “Corpsegrinder” Fisher would constantly perform his famous headbanging with his crazy-long hair and infamous thick neck. Cannibal Corpse are a band of few words that likes to focus on the music rather than have long speeches after every couple songs. Fisher would joke around with the fans by telling them that he didn’t understand anything the fans were telling him because it all sounds like mumbo jumbo with everyone shouting at once, letting them know about the new album, and calling out fans who were shouting random songs for the band to perform.
Cannibal Corpse went on to perform other brutal tracks such as The Wretched Spawn, Devoured By Vermin, Pounded Into Dust, and A Skull Full of Maggots. Nearing the end of the show, Fisher announced: “This is a love song. It’s about shooting blood from your cock! I…CUM…BLOOOOD!”. Cannibal Corpse played I Cum Blood which is one of their most famous songs from their infamous third album, Tomb of the Mutilated. Make Them Suffer in another one of the band’s newer hits that fans really enjoy moshing and going crazy for. Fisher had to unfortunately announce the last song of the night and it was Stripped, Raped, and Strangled. The fans went wild, crowd surfers were everywhere, and even fans that were on the venue’s second tier of the standing area were willingly throwing themselves onto the mosh pit below. The song ended and Fisher made one last joke about that being the last song and announced the real final song of the night, the band’s most famous song and one of the most well-known songs in the metal community, Hammer Smashed Face. The crowd went the most wild for this song as the mosh pit got even bigger to where most of the floor was involved in a huge circle. Cannibal Corpse finished the song then left the stage as well as a very exhausted crowd. If you love death metal and metal in general, Cannibal Corpse is a must-see band, especially if you love joining in the mosh pit.
Review by: Misael Ruiz
