Cannibal Corpse have officially unveiled the first single off their upcoming death metal opus, Violence Unimagined. The album will be released on April 16th through Metal Blade Records. The band unveiled the first single today, a gruesome video and the news that guitarist Erik Rutan is now a permanent member of the band.
Rutan has previous produced four Corpse records, (Kill, Evisceration Plague, Torture, Red Before Black).
Corpse guitarist Pat O'Brien is currently facing charges of burglary of an occupied dwelling with assault and aggravated assault of a law enforcement officer.
O'Brien broke into a neighbor's home, threw a woman in the residence to the ground, and ran to their backyard where he hid behind a fence. When cops surrounded him, he tried to charge at them with a knife, but was tasered and arrested. As this was happening, his own home was engulfed in flames, and live ammunition was going off. There were "military-grade flame throwers" also causing the fire to get even bigger, resulting in his entire home burning down. Firefighters worked for hours to put out the blaze. There are no charges against O'Brien as a result of the blaze.
Bassist Alex Webster offered this comment on the addition of Rutan. “I think the most noticeable difference on this record will be the addition of Erik to the band. He wrote three full songs for the record, music and lyrics, and his song writing and guitar playing have added something new, and I think his musical style integrated into ours very well.”
“He’s a great friend of ours, so on a personal level, he’s been a perfect fit, as we knew he would be. Beyond that, he’s one of the hardest working people I know, in music or otherwise, and he maintains a high energy, positive demeanor in challenging situations where other people might go in a negative direction. This energy and great attitude rubs off on the rest of us as well. That’s really a perfect situation to have when you add someone to a band, or any kind of team: someone who’s great at what they do, and also inspires the people around them.”
Webster says of the new album: “It really follows the path we’ve been going down for a few years now. I think we approach the writing in a similar way most every time: each of us try to write the heaviest, most memorable songs we can. We want each song to have its own identifiable character. Showing my age, I like to say you can ‘drop the needle’ on any point of one of our albums and quickly tell which song you’re listening to.”
Violence Unimagined will be released April 16 via Metal Blade. Pre-order it here. Here is the track list:
- “Murderous Rampage”
- “Necrogenic Resurrection”
- “Inhumane Harvest”
- “Comdenation Contagion”
- “Surround, Kill, Devour”
- “Ritual Annihilation”
- “Follow the Blood”
- “Bound and Burned”
- “Slowly Sawn”
- “Overtorture”
- “Cerements of the Flayed”
