The Bleeding (The Bleeding - Cannibal Corpse)

Member Name: Frankingsteins

Product:	The Bleeding - Cannibal Corpse
Date:	11/04/08 (28 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: More consistent performance.

Disadvantages: Dull vocals, and easy to drift out after the first song.

Cannibal Corpse surprisingly toned down the gore content for their fourth album, though with song titles like 'F**ked With a Knife' this is still clearly targeted largely at impressionable, teenage fans of slasher films rather than serious metalheads. This slight tempering of lyrics doesn't bring about a new maturity that would certainly bring the band's career to a close, as the image is stripped away and their fans realise the band isn't all that good, but there's evidently a change in approach here that proves the band has been paying attention to shifting trends.

While 'Tomb of the Mutilated' varied between slow, fast and medium speeds with somewhat tedious regularity, 'The Bleeding' is grounded in a medium tempo groove of the type found in much nineties metal, thanks to Metallica slowing down and the rise of bands like Pantera. While this makes for a less thrilling ride for fans of the classic death metal style than the band's debut album for example, it at least adds a sense of consistency, and the songs only end up sounding similar to the extent they did on previous albums. Which is rather a lot.

This would be vocalist Chris Barnes' last album with the band, and perhaps their chance to drop this weak link. While none of the band members display exceptional talent outside of bass virtuoso Alex Webster (whose performance is nevertheless rendered timid by the shoddy production), Barnes' growl has become incredibly tiresome here, and never lives up to the ferocity of the subject matter even when he unleashes brief screams in the choruses.

1. Staring Through the Eyes of the Dead
2. F**ked With a Knife
3. Stripped, Raped and Strangled
4. Pulverized
5. Return to Flesh
6. The Pick-Axe Murders
7. She Was Asking for It
8. The Bleeding
9. Force Fed Broken Glass
10. An Experiment in Homicide

Summary: Cannibal Corpse's fourth album (1994).