Butchered At Birth

Death metal was still defining itself when Cannibal Corpse released their debut, 1990’s Eaten Back To Life, and consequently, it was a primitive, thrashy album they’d evolve past very quickly. Butchered At Birth represents the first stage in that evolution. The guitars are a hellish buzzing sound, while the drums are a machine-gun blast, bolstered by Alex Webster’s thick rumble of bass. Chris Barnes’ vocals, simultaneously hoarse and guttural, set a bar for extremity that others (most notably his successor, George “Corpsegrinder” Fisher) would vault with ease, but at the time he barely sounded human.