Eaten Back to Life

AMG Review of Eaten Back to Life

Leslie Mathew
All Music Guide

Cannibal Corpse emerged fully formed out of Florida's famous death metal swamp with this one. All the trademarks are in place, from the B-horror movie album cover art to the ludicrously over the top lyrics -- "Brains devoured in a frenzied slaughter, thirst for gore nothing more/Bile is dripping, puss from wounds, as the coroner drinks it down." Chris Barnes growls his vocals like Satan on a diet of razor blades and paint thinner, and the playing is uniformly savage. Although their pursuit of lyrical and musical extremes was something of a joke from this first release on, Cannibal Corpse's single-minded devotion to their cause is admirable.