For a moment, I thought Cannibal Corpse was not going to recover from the departure of Pat O’Brien in the songwriting department. While 2021’s ‘Violence Unimagined’ wasn’t bad, something just felt off about nearly every song not written by Rob Barrett – my other favorite songwriter in Cannibal Corpse. Fortunately, ‘Chaos Horrific’ is a lot better. O’Brien’s replacement Erik Rutan seems to have found his take on Cannibal Corpse’s songwriting and bassist Alex Webster appears to have been more inspired this time around, resulting in what is probably the band’s most vicious, thrashing set of songs since 2006’s ‘Kill’ album.

While I quite like Cannibal Corpse, I find them fairly difficult to review, as they are a band I tend to enjoy on a riff by riff basis rather than song by song. This usually means that the Cannibal Corpse albums I like are the ones that heavily lean towards O’Brien’s twisted dissonance and Barrett’s intense thrash riffs. ‘Chaos Horrific’ is quite heavy on the extreme thrash turned up to eleven from everyone involved and it simply works. The energy injection the band has gotten while writing and recording the album pushed them to make something I didn’t think they had in them anymore.

Despite his wealth of experience writing, performing and producing death metal, Rutan did not quite fill the void O’Brien left behind on ‘Violence Unimagined’ in my opinion. However, Rutan’s ‘Blood Blind’ is exactly the twisted, semi-doomy grind that the album needs and his closer ‘Drain You Empty’ has similar sections alternating with probably the most intense death metal on here. ‘Fenzied Feeding’ is my favorite of his compositions here though, feeling like a steam train gone out of control with its pummeling, speedy riffs, which have their impact enhanced by the dark, ominous vibe of its slower middle section.

‘Vengeful Invasion’ is carried by one of the catchiest riffs ever produced by a non-melodic death metal band before morphing into a highly effective mid-tempo groove. ‘Pitchfork Impalement’ sports the most hilarious title, but also some of the most deliciously in-your-face riffs of the album. ‘Summoned for Sacrifice’ is reminiscent of Slayer’s best slower material, while ‘Fracture and Refracture’ and opening track ‘Overlords of Violence’ are excellent death thrashers. I would also like to commend Paul Mazurkiewicz. He may not be the most technical drummer in death metal, but his excellent sense of groove keeps the music from spiraling out of control. His drum sound is also perfect for this material.

Sure, Cannibal Corpse does not do anything revolutionary on ‘Chaos Horrific’, but complaining about that would be missing the point. What the album does do is play to all of the band’s strengths in a way I frankly think they haven’t done since ‘Kill’, enjoyable as some of the records released in the intervening seventeen years have been. Barrett, Webster and Rutan have found a fantastic way of weaving technicality into a set of energetic death metal tracks that might come across as straightforward, but remain surprising over repeated listens. Not many death metal bands of their ilk and era are able to do that quite as well.

Recommended tracks: ‘Vengeful Invasion’, ‘Frenzied Feeding’, ‘Fracture and Refracture’