The Buffalo band Cannibal Corpse has made quite a name for themselves in the death metal underground, and beyond. In fact, they are the most famous death metal band ever. If you ask any "normie" what is death metal, they will answer: Cannibal Corpse. Love them or hate them, they are death metal in the eyes of the mainstream.
But that doesn't mean they don't have their detractors. In a recent article, we wrote about Cannibal Corpse (specifically) and the rise of "joke death" metal in general. It had over 2,000 comments, not all favourable to the likes of Cannibal Corpse, a band often associated with the "modern metal" sound.
But bassist Alex Webster, who still is one of the founding members of Cannibal Corpse, has a different opinion on the issue. In his eyes, Cannibal Corpse is the "true" death metal sound, and other bands are responsible for degrading the genre into "robot music"... he makes some compelling arguments about how the genre became so "plastic" sounding.
Alex Webster Unloads Against the "Modern Metal" Sound
It has been covered extensively, notably in the book "The Death Metal Bible", but many modern death metal bands lack originality.
They sound like copycats of each other. Worse, many of them are "literal garbage" (see Arch Enemy).
"It sounds like machines are playing it"
Speaking about the release of their latest studio album "Chaos Horrific", Alex Webster of Cannibal Corpse weights in.
When he produces things, yes, we will fix things, but like with the drumming, he doesn't like to over-fix stuff. He likes to leave some of the natural stuff in there, a lot of the humanity to it. Some modern Metal production, it's almost like robots are playing...Yeah, especially Djent stuff...
Yeah, I mean, if that's what they're going for, that's fine, but it almost ends up having like a Dance music feel to it. It sounds like machines are playing it. If that's what you're going for and what you want artistically, fine, but that's going to be, that's not what we're doing in Cannibal Corpse. That's not what we want to do. Things are different now in how you record, but we want to continue to capture a raw sound.
He continues, about the rise of slam death metal, and associated subgenres:
The way I see it, Cannibal Corpse were meant to play brutal music. If there are a few errors here and there, like the two guitars not playing exactly the same riffs, that's fine. As long as it's brutal, as long as it's natural.
Cannibal Corpse always was the band to get into trouble for sharing their heterodox opinions, be it about the death metal scene, or anything else.
Love them or hate them, once again, they are not a band to mince their words and tip toe around sensitive subjects... even Euronymous recognised as much, in the late 80s.
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