Simply put, a masterpiece from start to finish, it is THAT good. What a step-up in musicianship, period! Every song is filled with brutal death metal annihilation! B-flat tuned guitars once again and you get that sickeningly heavy, chunky and thick throughout the album. Musically, this to me is their best album in their entire discography. Not just because of the compositions, but the flawlessness of the release. George "Corpsegrinder" Fisher rips it up on vocals featuring low-end throat with screaming too all throughout. This album doesn't let up much in intensity. The compositions are death metal precision and simply unique guitar riff by both Jack Owen and Pat O'Brien. Their guitars here are simply flawless!

What you have going on with the music is guitar that features extreme ingenuity and unrelenting brutality. They have sequences of tapping, tremolo picking, flying through the fretboard and just overall a mind-blowing intense surges of energy in the axes that it's incredible to hear. Their use of these methods make this one a release that truly honorable. Not just honorable in the sense that it sounds great, but honorable in the sense that it's an album built upon precision in songwriting. I cannot believe that after just one year marking a follow-up from 'Gallery of Suicide' (1998) that they'd make an album even more likeable than that one. It completely blows that one away with it's futurity. What an onslaught!

The use of differing vocals here leads it to yet more diversifying in sounds accompanying the magnificence of the guitar playing igniting it into an even more extensive use of brutality in each song. These guys really knew what the hell they were doing for the concept of this release. I think that it was the fact that they were trying to put out something that's brutally heavy, yet it covers so many angles musically that when you hear it, you'll be astonished. The musicianship is so well displayed here I cannot believe that they made an album so technical and flawless. Here you get nothing but sounds music-wise and vocal-wise that are more than just intriguing, they're incomprehensibly astonishing.

The production quality here is brilliant and all the music you could hear everything going strong, nothing was left out in the mixing and engineering of the overall sense of each vocal/instrument. The music reigns supreme over every Cannibal Corpse release to date. I'm not going to reiterate my points here, just the music is what makes this one so dominating in their entire discography. The vocals too slay and are so diverse, the fact that Corpsegrinder varies his voice from low end to screaming. It makes the music more interesting to get into. The guitar leads are well put out there by Jack and Pat, though I do favor their newer lineup nowadays. Still nothing tops 'Bloodthirst'.

If you haven't listened to this album or know about it, learn to know about it. Why am I ranking it so high? Because like I said, it's a "one of a kind" musical output. The intensity, the change in vocals, the variety in the music, the brutality, the pounding drums, the production quality, the guitar leads and the originality in the songwriting make it the best Cannibal Corpse release I've ever heard. They truly made a gem of an album here. If you already own it and consider it average, put it on again and hear it closely like you would other releases and you'll be probably like "hey, this album does kick butt. I didn't realize it till I read this!" Own this album if you don't already, it's in my opinion their best!

Rating: 10 (out of 10) ratings explained

Reviewed by Death8699
04/09/2015 17:38