“This is f**king 4K s**t”: Erik Rutan and Rob Barrett on why Chaos Horrific is one of the grimmest releases from the Cannibal Corpse death metal meat grinder

Even set against 35 years of historically bludgeoning riffage, few Cannibal Corpse moments concave the chest quite like the G#-tuned death march that begins Blood Blind, the first single from the act’s 16th fetid full-length, Chaos Horrific. 

Credit this monstrously chunky moment to guitarist Erik Rutan, who has been producing Cannibal Corpse records since 2006’s Kill and was fully integrated into the lineup on 2021’s Violence Unimagined.

He’s been a great fit. As a fan and friend of the band since the release of 1990’s Eaten Back to Life, Rutan knows the guiding principles of death metal’s most offal-flinging outfit.

“When I think of Cannibal Corpse, it’s extreme heaviness,” Rutan – a former member of Morbid Angel and the longtime leader of Hate Eternal – says of writing for the gore-obsessed icons.

He adds that the lockdown-era bleakness of Chaos Horrific’s creation phase was another source of inspiration for the “darkness and despair” he brought into the sessions. “I’m known for technicality and aggressiveness, but with this record I was feeling grim.” 

Since Covid measures prevented Cannibal Corpse from touring Violence Unimagined when it was first released, songwriters Rutan, Rob Barrett and bassist Alex Webster threw themselves back into the meat grinder to find more horrific soundscapes. 

Webster and Rutan demoed tales of zombified feeding frenzies at their respective homes before converging upon the latter’s MANA Recording Studios in St. Petersburg, Florida. 

Barrett opted to fine-tune arpeggiated thrashers like Vengeful Invasion in-the-flesh with founding drummer Paul Mazurkiewicz.

“I’m more hands on. I actually go to the practice room with Paul and piece everything together with him, just to make sure that he’s comfortable with the speed of the beats I want to use,” Barrett says. “It’s just more organic, in my opinion.”

While Chaos Horrific makes for some Grade-A carnage, when it came to the dissonant chord abstraction and time signature lunacy of Webster-penned pieces like Overlords of Violence and Pestilential Rictus, Barrett and Rutan admit it took a while to find the right leads for the bassist’s mania.

“I’m not a mathematician when it comes to soloing. I’m usually just a feel guy – so is Rob; we share that,” Rutan says, though the pair still deliver plenty of hellish shred and harmonic tension. 

They also anchored into their quad-tracked rhythms with newfound bombast after acquiring longer-scale custom B.C. Rich and Dean electric guitars that better absorb and intonate the menace of a disgustingly low tuning.

“This is fucking 4K shit,” producer/guitarist Rutan says with a laugh of the upgrades that may have just pushed Cannibal Corpse into their heaviest era yet.

Chaos Horrific is out now via Metal Blade.

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