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Our readers already dubbed Cannibal Corpse the most brutal band ever and the greatest death-metal act still going. We're inclined to agree.
The Florida gorehounds have pursued an unprecedented career in extreme metal, weathering the nu-metal boom in the late Nineties, the deathcore wave of the early 2010s, and settling into legacy status while still delivering some of the best music of their entire run.
We asked our readers to pick the single greatest Cannibal Corpse song in their vast 15-album discography. The results varied from old-school standards to newer standouts, and the top five vote-getters are ranked accordingly below.
5. "Evisceration Plague"
The title track from Cannibal Corpse's 2009 album, Evisceration Plague, is sonically monstrous and lyrically even more so. In it, vocalist George "Corpsegrinder" Fisher bellows about an infectious disease that makes people lose their minds and start killing each other. Fittingly, the song's grave-digging groove would provide a great soundtrack for some bloody mayhem.
4. "Stripped, Raped and Strangled"
Cannibal Corpse's 1994 album, The Bleeding, was their last with OG vocalist Chris Barnes, and while it remains one of their most commercially successful LPs, it's also insanely brutal. "Stripped, Raped and Strangled" is — from the title alone — absolutely gruesome, but the groove of the song is really what makes it stand out in their catalog. Pure filth.
3. "The Bleeding"
It was cool to see a non-obvious pick come in at No. 3, especially one of the less-often celebrated cuts from The Bleeding. The huge, Slayer-like leads on this make for an epic entrance, and from there the band drizzle in plenty of nasty licks, heavy rhythms and hideous vocals that make "The Bleeding" a quintessential Cannibal Corpse banger.
2. "Scourge of Iron"
That RIFF! More than a few voters pointed to the axe-swinging guitar part at the center of "Scourge of Iron," which is so goddamn meaty, stinkface-inducing and skull-splittingly heavy that it rocketed "Scourge of Iron" to No. 2 on this list.
Cannibal Corpse were writing songs this good on their 12th(!) album, Torture. How many metal bands produce some of their greatest material two decades deep into their career? Not many.
1. "Hammer Smashed Face"
Yes, it's the tune that featured in Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, quite possibly the most high-profile plug death metal has ever gotten. But "Hammer Smashed Face" is also a great fucking song that our readers have properly heralded as Cannibal Corpse's single greatest composition.
The Tomb of the Mutilated standout is death-metal incarnate. The title itself is vile, but the lyrical specificity of a madman bashing a victim's head to bits can still make even the most hardened headbanger squirm. The main riff is hauntingly sinister. The breakdown is clobbering.
"Hammer Smashed Face" is just a perfect death-metal song, and so it makes total sense that the fans would put it at the No. 1 spot. It's where it belongs.
