Cannibal Corpse - A Skeletal Domain (2014)

Posted By: apocalipsys2014

Date: Dec. 31, 2014

Well, this was a pleasant surprise indeed. I have been an on-and-off listener of Cannibal Corpse since the early 2000’s. I never really became an avid fan, but I always came back to check out what these fore-runners of modern death metal were up to. Each time I was met with pretty similar reactions: mild amusement, some head-banging, appreciation of the technical guitar-work and drumming, etc. But not much overall enjoyment was had. The closest I came was with Kill, which was a very solid album.

With the critics talking about this being more business-as-usual for the troop, I didn’t have high expectations going into my first listen. That was a mistake. This album ripped my face off and wore it for a hat. I don’t know why more people aren’t talking about it. I really can’t put my finger on exactly what it is that makes me enjoy this album so much more than the previous ones, but my feet were rocking the double bass under my desk for almost every track. I liked it so much I went on my lunch break and bought it on the spot. Something I rarely do

This is still very much the same Cannibal Corpse you would expect, but the song writing just feels tighter and the production fiercer. A lot of people really dug Torture, but I still just couldn’t get all that interested. I give that album credit for still managing to come up with chilling imagery that was disturbing to me (for some reason Encased in Concrete just gives me the jeebies). The writing here feels a little different though. Instead of realism and straight-up gore, the imagery is either a little more supernatural or cartoonish, which I kind of enjoy. I could see Metalocalypse making episodes off of some of the ideas at play here. Funeral Cremation and Icepick Labotomy still have the disturbing realism though.

As for the musicianship, everyone shines here. The guitar riffs are more memorable (at least in my mind) and feel less cut-and-paste DM by numbers. Even the solos make an impression rather than being just typical Slayer/Venom technical guitar doodling. The drums are crushing with beats that get me amped to the Nth degree. The bass still has that weird tinny, distortion sound that lets it take center stage at times. And Mr. Corpsegrinder’s delivery is spot on. Whereas on Torture I feel he kind of haphazardly spewed the lyrics, here there is a very deliberate cadence. They don’t sound like Meshuggah, but the way he is careful to compliment the overall rhythm with each guttural bark harkens to their style.

To sum up, if you like death metal, you should buy this album. In a tired genre with not a lot of room for growth beyond developing into one of the various subgenres, this manages to feel fresh without jumping the shark. It’s not the same as the classics, but in a time where deathcore has taken over; this album can remind everyone what brutal truly means, and that the old school can still kick in skulls like they used to.

www.metal-archives.com

Musicians:

Vocals : George "Corpsegrinder" Fisher
Guitars : Pat O'Brien
Guitars : Rob Barrett
Bass : Alex Webster
Drums : Paul Mazurkiewicz

Recorded, produced, mixed & enginereed at Audiohammer Studios, Santford, Florida, between February 2014 and May 2014

Track List:

01. High Velocity Impact Spatter [4:07]
02. Sadistic Embodiment [3:17]
03. Kill Or Become [3:51]
04. A Skeletal Domain [3:39]
05. Headlong Into Carnage [3:01]
06. The Murderers Pact [5:05]
07. Funeral Cremation [3:42]
08. Icepick Lobotomy [3:16]
09. Vector Of Cruelty [3:25]
10. Bloodstained Cement [3:42]
11. Asphyxiate To Resuscitate [3:47]
12. Hollowed Bodies [3:06]

EAC extraction logfile

Exact Audio Copy V1.0 beta 3 from 29. August 2011

EAC extraction logfile from 12. September 2014, 21:03

Cannibal Corpse / A Skeletal Domain

Used drive : HL-DT-STDVDRAM GU40N Adapter: 0 ID: 1

Read mode : Secure
Utilize accurate stream : Yes
Defeat audio cache : Yes
Make use of C2 pointers : No

Read offset correction : 103
Overread into Lead-In and Lead-Out : No
Fill up missing offset samples with silence : Yes
Delete leading and trailing silent blocks : No
Null samples used in CRC calculations : Yes
Used interface : Installed external ASPI interface

Used output format : User Defined Encoder
Selected bitrate : 128 kBit/s
Quality : High
Add ID3 tag : No
Command line compressor : C:\Program Files (x86)\AudioConverter\AudioConverter.exe
Additional command line options : -V -8 -T "Date=%year%" -T "Genre=%genre%" %source%

TOC of the extracted CD

Track | Start | Length | Start sector | End sector
––––––––––––––––––––––––––––-
1 | 0:00.00 | 4:06.68 | 0 | 18517
2 | 4:06.68 | 3:17.23 | 18518 | 33315
3 | 7:24.16 | 3:50.50 | 33316 | 50615
4 | 11:14.66 | 3:38.58 | 50616 | 67023
5 | 14:53.49 | 3:01.19 | 67024 | 80617
6 | 17:54.68 | 5:05.17 | 80618 | 103509
7 | 23:00.10 | 3:41.67 | 103510 | 120151
8 | 26:42.02 | 3:16.18 | 120152 | 134869
9 | 29:58.20 | 3:25.11 | 134870 | 150255
10 | 33:23.31 | 3:41.74 | 150256 | 166904
11 | 37:05.30 | 3:47.30 | 166905 | 183959
12 | 40:52.60 | 3:05.60 | 183960 | 197894

Range status and errors

Selected range

Filename C:\Users\workutagin\Desktop\Cannibal Corpse - A Skeletal Domain 2014\Cannibal Corpse - A Skeletal Domain.wav

Peak level 100.0 %
Extraction speed 1.9 X
Range quality 100.0 %
Test CRC 980185DA
Copy CRC 980185DA
Copy OK

No errors occurred

AccurateRip summary

Track 1 not present in database
Track 2 not present in database
Track 3 not present in database
Track 4 not present in database
Track 5 not present in database
Track 6 not present in database
Track 7 not present in database
Track 8 not present in database
Track 9 not present in database
Track 10 not present in database
Track 11 not present in database
Track 12 not present in database

None of the tracks are present in the AccurateRip database

End of status report

==== Log checksum 484205C5177EB415680A75A27E6ECD878AD75A183591C01E97C22780CC465F7C ====

Not my rip, not my scan-job. Thx very much to the original uploader sid_pardo!
5% WinRar Recovery Record for all files.
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