Cannibal Corpse

We always knew that Cannibal Corpse was dangerous, but it recently became official when Google began begging its users to avoid the band’s website. “Visiting this site may harm your computer!” the Web browser trumpets, “Continue to http://www.cannibalcorpse.net/ at your own risk.”

At our own risk indeed. After nearly 20 years as the first name in death metal, there’s not an extreme-music fan alive who doesn’t know the perils of upstate New York’s most notorious sons. Taking the speed and malevolence of Slayer to an uglier place, Cannibal Corpse has inspired countless misfits the world over to sing like Cookie Monster, play drums like an Uzi, and appreciate the artistic nuances of necrophilia, dismemberment, and the type of sex acts one might hear described by the coroner on Law & Order: SVU.

While some purists may complain that since the 2004 departure of guitarist Jack Owen, the band now only has the bassist and drummer from the original lineup, we are among the staunch defenders of George “Corpsegrinder” Fisher, who has, over the last 11 years, surpassed original vocalist Chris Barnes in gore-growling. Or maybe we just appreciate that Corpsegrinder never went the white-guy-with-dreadlocks route that has forced us to avert our eyes whenever Barnes’s band Six Feet Under hits the stage.

Though 2006’s Kill (Metal Blade) was definitely up to snuff (although not as, pardon the b-word, brutal as classics like Butchered at Birth), we were pretty disappointed by the cover art, which features bloody lettering, but none of the nauseatingly disturbing artwork that has become the band’s signature. Our hopes are that the Corpsesters finally came up with imagery so vile even they couldn’t stomach it.—Jake Austen