Rigor Mortis cover

Rigor Mortis

Released
1988

Texas’s Rigor Mortis was the Mike Scaccia show. The band’s lead guitarist played with unbelievable speed and precision, delivering riffs that went by so fast they buzzed as much as they roared and Paganini-esque solos over jackhammer rhythms from bassist Casey Orr and drummer Hayden Harrison. Vocalist Bruce Corbitt had a warped charisma, his guttural tone somewhere between Macho Man Randy Savage and Oderus Urungus of GWAR as he delivered songs like “Bodily Dismemberment,” “Die In Pain,” and “Slow Death” before anyone had heard the name Cannibal Corpse. This was the hard, heavy shit, for the true moshpit knuckle-walkers only. And yet somehow, this punishing, utterly uncompromising band wound up signed to Capitol Records for their debut. They were quickly dropped, of course, but this album remains a land speed record holder and an absolutely bludgeoning thrash classic.

Phil Freeman

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