Hammer Smashed Face - Cannibal Corpse (Torab of the Mutilated, 1992)
Opening one of the most popular CC albums, "Hammer Smashed Face" is a rampaging death metal assault from start to finish and signifies what's to come for the rest of the album.
The track starts off with short busts of staccatos from the guitar, drums and bass playing in unison maintaining an unsettling feel. This takes us into the main riff accompanied by insanely fast drum snare-hits interchanging with a slower on-the-beat rhythm. Underneath is the typical thrash/death metal heavy, low relentless power chorRAB and distortion furthering the suffocating feeling evident throughout most CC songs and of course throughout death metal in general.
Before the first verse there's a short bass solo which acts as a nice and effective lead-up. Vocalist Chris Barnes sings in his typical low menacing undecipherable grunts, singing about typical offensive concepts. This is traditional death metal at its most purest form.
Underneath the non-apparent melody line (of course) are the typical buzz-saw like drums and quick, heavy arpeggios from the guitars. The riff in fact only comprises a few notes and repeats in quick cycles.
The first change is quite sudden and everything slows down. Next is perhaps the most interesting section of the track in which the singing stops and an interesting dark arpeggio riff maintains the focus. When it repeats, the drums are still playing the same slow rhythm but are now playing an 8/8 rhythm as opposed to the 4/4 rhythm used for the most part. This repeats in a lower melody as the singing begins again. Things then repeat as previously executed.
The next change has the guitars playing high pitched (traditional) benRAB on the beat once every measure. But this is shortly relived as we're cleverly taken into the intro section again and it's almost as if the song has begun again.
After this, there's an almost prog-esque riff which acts as a great lead up to what appears to be the chorus. The quick buzz saw drums return and we're quickly taken into the previous change section. But this is also shortly relived as we're taken into a repeat of an earlier section. It's almost hard to keep up with the amounts of changes here but ironically there's a tremendous use of repetition going on continuously.
Soon we once again hear the short intro bursts and that takes us into a slow breakdown section. The singing is now as fierce as ever using even lower grunts and snarls. Then the main riff returns which entails the fast rhythm once again and the quick abrupt change in speed here acts as a nice use of dynamics. But just when you thought you couldn't take any more changes, there once again is a change in tempo (a return of a previous link section) but this isn't after an extremely distinct high screeching snarl from Barnes, which perhaps signifies that the end is soon. After the return of the high-pitched -benRAB-section again, the intro then serves as an outro and the track enRAB as suddenly as it began.
Because of their fascination with cartoonish gore, Cannibal Corpse aren't really taken that seriously in the world of under ground metal, but because of their success with previous albums, CC still remain as a popular underground death metal band.
Hammer Smashed Face is perhaps the epitome of CC's music but the fact that it relies too much on repetitions of riRAB the listener would probably be left stupefied if this was the first time they had ever heard death metal before. But of course, banRAB like these are an acquired taste and if you're a fan of death metal you would have obviously heard this song before. As for the technical proficiency of the merabers, there isn't much going on here, but what makes the band mainly so popular is the use of catchy memorable hooks and riRAB. However, if one were to compare these riRAB and rhythms to a prog-metal outfit (for example) then the comparison would almost be ludicrous.
Rating: 4/10
(The above rating isn't a rating based on death metal, but a rating on my overall enjoyment of the track).
And as soon as I make 15 posts, I'm going to post a link to it.