Review by Michael on August 23, 2023.

Only two years after Violence Unimagined guys from Cannibal Corpse are going to release their 25th studio album Chaos Horrific. I guess they used the Covid-19 lockdown times very productively, otherwise I cannot explain the short time period between the two albums. For me Violence Unimagined was a quite okayish Cannibal Corpse release, I feel very different about Chaos Horrific.

Starting with a casual The Bleeding - in memoriam bass riff, 'Overlords Of Violence' (damn, the title reminds me of an old Playstation game) goes into a very interesting direction. Although the song sounds pretty much like a "normal" Cannibal Corpse song, it has some nuances that make the song a very catchy and with a few other ones the most accessible song on the album. The guitar solos are pretty sick and the whole thing is a high speed neck breaking trip that leaves no room to breathe. That's a very good start for sure. With 'Summoned For Sacrifice' the band has released their second single a few days ago and this one may be the most outstanding and catchiest song on the album. The lyrics are pretty sick and Corpsegrinder's vocals sound as malevolent as possible. The song is a pretty much a mid-tempo stomper, only here and there the Floridians increase the tempo to severe some body parts. 'Blood Blind' starts with some slow lava-flowing Morbid Angel-like riffing (not the only parts where you can clearly recognize Erik Rutans influence on the song writing) but soon turns into a slow galloping avalanche of massive death metal riffs. That's a pretty simplistic but brutal track. But as I mentioned before not all songs make it that easy. Let's take the title track as a very good example. The beat of the song is very confusing and the term "chaos" matches pretty good to the song. Okay, not right from the start but when the vocals start Paul Mazurkiewicz's drumming sounds very unusual and very technical. Same goes to the sick guitar solo which again reminds of Morbid Angel or early Hate Eternal. But there are also some really typical CC songs to find here like 'Pitchfork Impalement' (hell yeah, the fall and the harvest will come soon!) or 'Vengeful Invasion'. Oh, and with 'Pestilential Rictus' they do have written a very punkish one with some fantastic thrash borrowings, too. Just check the song structure and you will know what I mean.

There are a lot of cool surprises in the songs. In comparison to its predecessor, the songwriting is much more diverse and this is the reason why in my humble opinion this might be one of the three best Cannibal Corpse albums in their discography. The band hasn't focused that much on brutality and technicality this time but more on variety and joy of playing. I guess that they had a quite different approach towards the song writing this time which seems to be successful and somewhat refreshing. Also the production of Chaos Horrific is well done. The instruments sound powerful and well-balanced and the crushing vocals are brutal as hell. There were some albums that didn't sound that good in the past. If the next album will be that amazing and we just have to wait 2 more years again, I won't be sad about it!

Rating: 9.2 out of 10