The band's latest assault on our ears, the gritty and powerful _Bloodthirst_, is a solid concoction of veteran know-how and producer Colin Richardson's (Machine Head / Fear Factory) ingenuity. When band and producer see eye to eye, the results can be worthy of attention. This album shines for all to take hold of.

With cut-throat agility, Cannibal Corpse pace themselves this time with _Bloodthirst_, reaching out to take in an experience, yet still showcase that they've got it. Working crushing guitar riffs to the max and vocal stylings that would please any metaller's ears, _Bloodthirst_ helps Cannibal Corpse paint a picture of wretched doings and violent images. Those with weak hearts, please step aside. Songs like "Ecstasy in Decay", "Unleashing the Bloodthirsty" or "Condemned to Agony" are Cannibal Corpse at their finest.

Could this be their best LP to date? Some might agree, but some might disagree, calling out albums like _Tomb of the Mutilated_ or _Butchered at Birth_ as classics and their best work. Some might even say _Vile_. Whatever comes about one's perception of this album, the bottom line is that Cannibal Corpse have slightly altered their sound over the past decade and it is still good. Fans are still around and things seem to be going all right. Bassist/founder/lyricist Alex Webster is happy with the way things are going at the moment.

"I think with what we got here, it just seems to be a solid piece of work", he begins on the topic of the new record. "It just all fell into place. It just seems as though our way of writing has changed over the years, especially with George ["Corpsegrinder" Fisher] replacing Chris [Barnes, now in Six Feet Under]. I think when Chris was in the band, with a lot of the lyrics and music he wrote, it had to be a certain way. The way he wanted it. With George now in, we've all become a little tighter at writing things, working as a team, rather than following what was being dictated to us."

"I am just feeling a bit stronger about what I am doing now, too. My songs that I write and do the lyrics for are sounding as I had planned them to. With Chris in the band I knew that when I took ideas to him they would come back sounding just a bit different. It was never a problem, just an altered idea that did come noticed to me."

So what's the catch? Why do people keep coming back to the band? "I think what people like about Cannibal Corpse [rounded out by guitarists Jack Owen and Pat O'Brien and drummer Paul Mazurkiewicz] is that no matter what has happened over the years, not a lot has changed with us. We really like playing death metal and we try to keep working ideas around the basis of what we started the band on. We want to make a brutal death metal record all the time and we have done that. It all goes back to a band like Iron Maiden who knew how to keep a formula going, but change a little bit each time out, yet still keep the fans interested. I think that runs true with Cannibal Corpse. Bands like Morbid Angel and Deicide have changed over the years, but have kept true to the original formula instead of drastically changing. If someone liked your first record, they liked it for a reason, and every time you put out a new record they are going to keep coming back to get what you provided them with before."

About the new record, which was recorded in Tornillo, Texas (at Village Productions) instead of Morrisound Studios in Florida where the band has done most of their recordings, he says, "Hopefully people will see just what a difference there is in what we did. I think it has added to the sound of the record, a step ahead of what we have done in the past, I think, and that does seem to come from where we did the record. It's an experience. I think with this being our seventh album, this may have our hardest songs ever and the hardest songs to play", he quips. "It's just good to be able to go out and offer the fans something new with Cannibal Corpse."

"We tried a lot of different things on the last record [_Gallery of Suicide_]; some songs were a bit slower -- and I hope it was still heavy for all the fans -- and this time we just went in and wrote faster material. We figured, why use talent to write slower music when you can use talent to write heavier and faster music? We're all improving over the years and I think we should go out and use those improvements to make the best brutal death metal each time out."

"We had a lot of fun with this record. It was great to get away and work at the new studio in Texas, 'cause it seemed that every album that we were recording at Morrisound over the last few years, we were experiencing deja vu with our music. We needed to just find something new with our music and we found it."

And seeing that they found luck with the new studios, luck must have been dished out twice with the band working with Colin Richardson for the first time. Right? "Yeah... we had such a blast working with Colin. He knew what we wanted. We felt that we got as brutal as we could from Morrisound, which was pretty brutal, but we wanted to try something different and see how far we could go with our music. We'll have to see how it goes. It's hard for me to be objective about this record right now. Come back to me after a year and I'll tell you how I feel about the record's sound then."

The band have paid their dues over the years. Band turmoil, controversy over album artwork and lyrics, criticisms -- you name it, they've experienced it. Says Webster, "It all gets old to us real fast when people take shots at the band. People who think we don't know how to play haven't really given the music much of a listen. As for the name and what has come from it? We knew what we were getting into when we named the band Cannibal Corpse. We wanted a horror-type name to go along with the brutal music we were playing. We had such a great cause for wanting to do this band. Our music inspired and excited us and you have to understand that when you get all excited over something, you know there is always going to be that one person (or persons) who won't like the situation. I look at all these bands who play it safe. I think a lot of death metal bands play it safe when it comes to their images, music, lyrics and even band names. You'd be surprised who I thought played it safe. I won't name any of them, but you can see the ones who won't go out of their way to do crazy shit."

He continues: "Not many bands would do a song like "Hammer Smashed Face", but we did. We were like fuck it. We didn't care what other people thought. If you start to care about what other people think when it comes to writing music or lyrics, or anything for that matter, then you become their prisoner. Fuck it! Some people are going to hate you, but fuck them too. I'd rather do something great that only a few people like than something mediocre that a lot of people like."

Let the sickened, bloodthirsty ways of Cannibal Corpse spread to the metal community once again. Indulge, metalheads, as this is a worthy slab of metal to chew on as we head into the year 2000. Once again, Cannibal Corpse deliver.