The new Corpse (left to right): guitarist Rob Barrett, bassist Alex Webster, vocalist George "Corpsegrinder" Fisher, guitarist Erik Rutan, and drummer Paul Mazurkiewicz.
As extreme metal continues to splinter into infinite niche genres and thrash metal's heroes steadily mosh towards the pastures of classic rock, it's the right time to re-examine the legacy of the bands that initiated metal's big push towards the outer reaches of its sonic margins. Much of the guitar content on social media these days is comprised of young players shredding and djenting away on extended-scale guitars, and it's no exaggeration to say that none of that would exist without the influence of O.G. American death metal's bludgeoning chug and churn. And while they weren't the first on the scene, Cannibal Corpse is often considered the band that ultimately defined the subgenre's sound.
With the release of their skull-shatteringly heavy 15th studio album, Violence Unimagined—and now boasting over 30 years of parent-terrifying music—Cannibal Corpse have proven yet again that they're more than just innovators within a subgenre. They're an institution. Essentially, Cannibal Corpse is the AC/DC of death-metal: a band that's created a distinct sound and consistently progressed within that idiom despite several lineup changes, including a lead vocalist—again like AC/DC—without sacrificing the elements that made that sound so enthralling in the first place.
Violence Unimagined is a dynamic and bloody disgusting journey through a hectic mix of Cannibal Corpse's signature breakneck blasters and hulking mid-tempo groovers. It's an album that has everything fans love and expect from the Florida-based squad. It's also an album that benefits tremendously from an injection of fresh creative blood via the contributions of longtime producer Erik Rutan, who not only produced the recordings, but officially joined the quintet as a guitarist and songwriter just before starting pre-production.
"I think he did a really good job of adapting and Cannibalizing his riffs to make it sound like us." —Rob Barrett
Best known for fronting his own band, Hate Eternal, and for the multiple long stints he's served on guitar with Morbid Angel, Rutan has spent the lion's share of the past decade producing a laundry list of diverse and critically acclaimed heavy albums from his MANA Studios in St. Petersburg, Florida. This isn't the first time that Rutan has played guitar with the band, though. When Pat O'Brien took leave in 2019, the producer was the obvious choice to step in as his touring replacement. O'Brien and the band have since parted ways entirely, and with Rutan on board as an official member of the group, Violence Unimagined is Cannibal Corpse's first release to feature his song contributions.
A lineup shift can throw a serious wrench in the works for a band with a sound as well-defined as that of Cannibal Corpse, but Rutan's integration into the fold for Violence Unimagined was seamless—something he and guitarist Rob Barrett credit to his deep ties with the group. Rutan details just how deep that history really goes, saying, "I remember Alex [Webster, bass] and Paul [Mazurkiewicz, drums] handing me the first Cannibal record before it even came out! I've known Rob and George ["Corpsegrinder" Fisher, vocals] since 1990, and having recorded the band so many times, I have a really clear understanding of their music. And as guitarists, Rob and I have always worked great together on getting tones and I've always had so much respect for the kind of player and writer he is."
For years now, Cannibal Corpse's songs have been penned by individual band members. Even though Rutan was asked to join just three months before entering the studio, "they welcomed me with open arms when it came to contributing songs," he says. "A lot of Alex's and Rob's songs had been formulated already when I started to write, so I was able to see what would help fill in some gaps to help make it an even bigger album dynamically. I had a very loose thought process going into it because there had been songs presented to me already, and I was working around those, though when I typically start writing, thinking kind of goes out the window. The songwriting is more about instinct and trying to preserve the things that make this band what it is, while still creating fresh ideas. I think that's why this band has had the success and longevity it has, and I love every record this band has done because they all offer something unique."
Rob Barrett's Gear
"It's crazy to think, but we're almost classic death metal now," says Rob Barrett, seen here playing his Dean Cadillac onstage with Cannibal Corpse in 2018.
Photo by Alex Morgan
Guitars
- 1989 Gibson Les Paul Standard with EMG 81 pickups
- Dean Custom Shop Cadillac with 25 ¾" scale and Fishman Fluence Modern Active Humbuckers
- Charvel Pro-Mod So-Cal Style 1 HH with maple fretboard and Seymour Duncan JB pickups (used for solos)
Strings and Picks
- D'Addario NYXL (.011–.064 7-string sets, without the .011, for guitars tuned to G# and C#)
- D'Addario NYXL (.013-.056, for guitars tuned to A# and D#)
- Dunlop Tortex 1.5 mm Sharp
Amps
- Mesa/Boogie Dual Rectifier
- Peavey 5150 (block letter era)
- Vintage Marshall JCM800
- Marshall 4x12 cab with Celestion Greenbacks
Effects
- Ibanez 30th Anniversary TS9 Tube Screamer
- Maxon OD-9 Overdrive
- Maxon ST-9 Pro+ Super Tube
Despite their longstanding rapport and mutual respect, Barrett admits he was a bit apprehensive about adding Rutan to the mix as a songwriter. "I was worried his songs were going to sound too much like Hate Eternal, but when he started playing me his stuff, it was like, 'Wow! This does sound like Cannibal Corpse!' You could just tell Erik Rutan wrote them. He did a really good job of adapting and Cannibalizing his riffs to make it sound like us." To Rutan's credit, he says writing tunes for Violence Unimagined felt "very natural," not only because of his long history with the group, but as a fan the guitarist felt confident he could apply his own feel and musical stamp to Cannibal Corpse's songs.
The major pivot point from past Cannibal Corpse releases comes from Rutan's unique vocabulary as a soloist. While Barrett's more traditionally stout shredding remains an immediately recognizable part of the Cannibal Corpse sound, Rutan's slithering melodic playing is worlds away from the chaotic chromatics of predecessor O'Brien. Rutan says, "Some of my earliest memories are hearing different composers, like Beethoven, Bach, Mozart, Vivaldi.... I really feel like listening to classical music as a child influenced how I approach songwriting. Even the stuff that's more dissonant has a classical background that I personally hear really clearly. The solo on 'Follow the Blood' is one of those moments. I created a melody, and halfway in it goes into a harmonized counterpoint melody, and in the center of the stereo spread is a full-on solo lead. That solo has a real classical music approach."
"Some of my earliest memories are hearing different composers, like Beethoven, Bach, Mozart, Vivaldi …" —Erik Rutan
The guitarist also looks well beyond Western classical music, and adds, "Turkish music and Middle Eastern stuff has been a huge inspiration to me! Listening to a lot of Middle Eastern music inspires a lot of my solos, even in 'Inhumane Harvest,' where there's slides and half-tone things that have a Middle Eastern flavor. And I do like to do a little shred here and rippin' there, but the song has to call for that."
Drawing from such a wide range of source material provides Rutan with the substance required to fulfill his own mission as a soloist. "I've always looked at solos as a journey within songs, and they have to take a path," he says. "It's all about the solo feeling natural within a song, and I want them to make an impact. If you look back at everything I've done, from Ripping Corpse to Morbid Angel and Hate Eternal, my approach to soloing has always been about substance over flash. It's never been about technique as much as it's been about feel, but with complexity. To me, complexity and technique are very different things."
Erik Rutan's Gear
Here's Erik Rutan onstage with his B.C. Rich Ironbird, back when Hate Eternal toured as an opening act for Cannibal Corpse in 2018.
Photo by Alex Morgan
Guitars
- 1989 Gibson Les Paul Standard w/ EMG 81 pickups
- B.C. Rich Custom Shop Ironbird w/Gibson Dirty Fingers bridge pickup and Lawrence L-500 neck pickup (used for solos)
Strings and Picks
- D'Addario NYXL (.11–.64 7-string sets, without the .011, for guitars tuned to G sharp and C sharp)
- D'Addario NYXL (.13-.56, for guitars tuned to A sharp and D sharp)
- Dunlop Jazz III XL Tortex 1.35 mm
Amps
- Mesa/Boogie Dual Rectifier
- Peavey 5150 (block letter era)
- Vintage Marshall JCM800
- Marshall 4x12 cab with Celestion Greenbacks
Effects
- Ibanez 30th Anniversary TS9 Tube Screamer
- Maxon OD-9 Overdrive
- Maxon ST-9 Pro+ Super Tube
While Violence Unimagined certainly marks a new era in many ways for Cannibal Corpse, it's business as usual for Barrett, who reflects on the band's legacy: "It's crazy to think, but we're almost classic death-metal now! We, as a band, have tried really hard to stay on the track we started on while moving forward. We never want to be stuck in the past and just keep trying to copy what we already did."
Meanwhile, Rutan ruminates on the process a bit more sentimentally. "Everyone's contributions and the accumulation of everyone's unique approach has allowed this band to keep progressing over the course of 15 albums, but those albums all keep true to the essence and spirit of what Cannibal Corpse is. From the riffs to the solos to the song structures to the album flow, it's all a journey.
Stacking Up Corpses: Building the Band’s Rhythm Guitar Sound
Longtime producer Erik Rutan stepped into the guitar chair on Violence Unimagined, marking his first time as a songwriter for the band.
After working on five albums with the band, Rutan may have mastered the clandestine art of recording Cannibal Corpse, but that doesn't mean it's an easy gig. The producer is adamant about quad-tracking rhythm guitars, a technique he says is key to creating the brutal wall of chainsaw axes that is Cannibal Corpse's calling card. Rather than reamping a single performance or splitting the guitar signal to multiple amps to capture several sources in one take, the two guitarists each had to provide four individual performances of every one of the new album's challenging, often tremolo-picked, rhythm parts.
Rutan breaks down the madness behind the method: "Part of what I like to do is color the four tracks with multiple amps, so we'll start with a defining tone, which will be the main tone panned left and right. Then we find a second tone to add in for the third and fourth tracks, and that tone is not really about how it sounds on its own, but what it contributes to the overall sound when combined with the main tone. We'll have guitar tracks three and four around 5 to 7 dB lower in the mix than the main tracks. You get a different character and dynamic in the overall tone that you don't even know is missing until you add that second amp in."
From Barrett's perspective, the hardest part about the quad tracking process is simply getting through the first track. "As soon as you get to the second track, it gets smoother and you can keep going," he says. "We try to play through each track as far as we can without doing punches, but this stuff isn't easy and we do punch in when it's a tricky part."
Rutan adds, "Rob and I are very proficient at duplicating our performances tightly and that really adds to that wall of sound. When you play a part four times, the little idiosyncrasies and inconsistencies—as long as you're a really tight player—add another layer of dynamics to the guitars."
"If you'd asked me a year ago what I saw coming, I'd have never envisioned how this whole thing unfolded. I've done a lot in my career and I've always felt really grateful for all the opportunities I've had, but this record, especially, is one of my proudest moments. After all these years, to join Cannibal Corpse—a band that means so much to my life, my career, and, personally, as friends—to be a part of it after 30-plus years of playing death-metal … it still blows my mind! It feels great and it feels so natural. I can't help but feel gratitude about it while also reflecting on the ups and downs and the work I've put into everything I do, and to be able to continue that while being a part of Cannibal Corpse is really special for me."
CANNIBAL CORPSE - Live in Bucharest, Romania 13.06.2019 [Full Show]
This raging concert performance from Bucharest, Romania, in 2019 was part of Erik Rutan's first tour with the band, before he became an official full-time member.
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There are plenty of mighty American rock bands, but relatively few have had as profound an impact on the international musical landscape as X. Along with other select members of punk’s original Class of 1977, including Patti Smith, Richard Hell, and Talking Heads, the Los Angeles-based outfit proved that rock ’n’ roll could be stripped to its bones and still be as literate and allusive as the best work of the songwriters who emerged during the previous decade and were swept up in the corporate-rock tidal wave that punk rebelled against. X’s first three albums–Los Angles, Wild Gift, and Under the Big Black Sun-were a beautiful and provocative foundation, and rocked like Mt. Rushmore.
Last year, X released a new album, Smoke & Fiction, and, after declaring it would be their last, embarked on what was billed as a goodbye tour, seemingly putting a bow on 47 years of their creative journey. But when PG caught up with X at Memphis’s Minglewood Hall in late fall, vocalist and bassist John Doe let us in on a secret: They are going to continue playing select dates and the occasional mini-tour, and will be part of the Sick New World festival in Las Vegas in April 12.
Not-so-secret is that they still rock like Mt. Rushmore, and that the work of all four of the founders–bassist, singer, and songwriter Doe, vocalist and songwriter Exene Cervenka, guitarist Billy Zoom, and drummer D.J. Bonebreak–remains inspired.
Onstage at Minglewood Hall, Doe talked a bit about his lead role in the film-festival-award-winning 2022 remake of the film noir classic D.O.A. But most important, he and Zoom let us in on their minimalist sonic secrets.Brought to you by D’Addario.
Gretsch A Sketch
Since X’s earliest days, Billy Zoom has played Gretsches. In the beginning, it was a Silver Jet, but in recent years he’s preferred the hollowbody G6122T-59 Vintage Select Chet Atkins Country Gentleman. This example roars a little more thanks to the Kent Armstrong P-90 in the neck and a Seymour Duncan DeArmond-style pickup in the bridge. Zoom, who is an electronics wiz, also did some custom wiring and has locking tuners on the guitar.
More DeArmond
Zoom’s sole effect is this vintage DeArmond 602 volume pedal. It helps him reign in the feedback that occasionally comes soaring in, since he stations himself right in front of his amp during shows.
It's a Zoom!
Zoom’s experience with electronics began as a kid, when he began building items from the famed Heath Kit series and made his own CB radio. And since he’s a guitarist, building amps seemed inevitable. This 1x12 was crafted at the request of G&L Guitars, but never came to market. It is switchable between 10 and 30 watts and sports a single Celestion Vintage 30.
Tube Time!
The tube array includes two EL84, 12AX7s in the preamp stage, and a single 12AT7. The rightmost input is for a reverb/tremolo footswitch.
Set the Controls for the Heart of the Big Black Sun
Besides 3-band EQ, reverb, and tremolo, Zoom’s custom wiring allows for a mid-boost that pumps up to 14 dB. Not content with 11, it starts there and goes to 20.
Baby Blue
This amp is also a Zoom creation, with just a tone and volume control (the latter with a low boost). It also relies on 12AX7s and EL84s.
Big Bottom
Here is John Doe’s rig in full: Ampeg and Fender basses, with his simple stack between them. The red head atop his cabs is a rare bird: an Amber Light Walter Woods from the 1970s. These amps are legendary among bass players for their full tone, and especially good for upright bass and eccentric instruments like Doe’s scroll-head Ampeg. “I think they were the first small, solid-state bass amps ever,” Doe offers. They have channels designated for electric and upright basses (Doe says he uses the upright channel, for a mid-dier tone), plus volume, treble, bass, and master volume controls. One of the switches puts the signal out of phase, but he’s not sure what the others do. Then, there’s a Genzler cab with two 12" speakers and four horns, and an Ampeg 4x10.
Scared Scroll
Here’s the headstock of that Ampeg scroll bass, an artifact of the ’60s with a microphone pickup. Doe seems to have a bit of a love/hate relationship with this instrument, which has open tuners and through-body f-style holes on its right and left sides. “The interesting thing,” he says, “is that you cannot have any treble on the pickup. If you do, it sounds like shit. With a pick, you can sort of get away with it.” So he mostly rolls off all the treble to shake the earth.
Jazz Bass II
This is the second Fender Jazz Bass that Doe has owned. He bought his first from a friend in Baltimore for $150, and used it to write and record most of X’s early albums. That one no longer leaves home. But this touring instrument came from the Guitar Castle in Salem, Oregon, and was painted to recreate the vintage vibe of Doe’s historic bass.
Tinkering with theSDE-3 Dual Digital Delay suggested a similar, possibly enduring appeal. As an evolution of the Roland SDE-3000rack unit from the 1980s, it’s a texture machine, bubbling with subtle-to-odd triangle LFO modulations and enhanced dual-delay patterns that make tone mazes from dopey-simple melodies. And with the capacity to use it with two amps in stereo or in panning capacity, it can be much more dimensional. But while the SDE-3 will become indispensable to some for its most complex echo textures, its basic voice possesses warmth that lends personality in pedestrian applications too.
Tapping Into the Source
Some interest in the original SDE-3000 is in its association with Eddie Van Halen, who ran two of them in a wet-dry-wet configuration, using different delay rates and modulation to thicken and lend dimension to solos. But while EVH’s de facto endorsement prompted reissues of the effect as far back as the ’90s, part of the appeal was down to the 3000’s intrinsic elegance and simplicity.
In fact, the original rack unit’s features don’t differ much from what you would find on modern, inexpensive stompbox echoes. But the SDE-3000’s simplicity and reliable predictability made it conducive to fast workflow in the studio. Critically, it also avoided the lo-fi and sterility shortcomings that plagued some lesser rivals—an attribute designer Yoshi Ikegami chalks up to analog components elsewhere in the circuit and a fortuitous clock imprecision that lends organic essence to the repeats.
Evolved Echo Animal
Though the SDE-3 traces a line back to the SDE-3000 in sound and function, it is a very evolved riff on a theme. I don’t have an original SDE-3000 on hand for comparison, but it’s easy to hear how the SDE-3 bridges a gap between analog haze and more clinical, surgical digital sounds in the way that made the original famous. Thanks to the hi-cut control, the SDE-3’s voice can be shaped to enhance the angular aspect of the echoes, or blunt sharp edges. There’s also a lot of leeway to toy with varied EQ settings without sacrificing the ample definition in the repeats. That also means you can take advantage of the polyrhythmic effects that are arguably its greatest asset.
“There’s a lot of leeway to toy with varied EQ settings without sacrificing the ample definition in the repeats.”
The SDE-3’s offset control, which generates these polyrhythmic echoes, is its heart. The most practical and familiar echos, like quarter, eighth, and dotted-eighth patterns, are easy to access in the second half of the offset knobs range. In the first half of the knob’s throw, however, the offset delays often clang about at less-regular intervals, producing complex polyrhythms that are also cool multipliers of the modulation and EQ effects. For example, when emphasizing top end in repeats, using aggressive effects mixes and pitch-wobble modulation generates eerie ghost notes that swim through and around patterns, adding rhythmic interest and texture without derailing the drive behind a groove. Even at modest settings, these are great alternatives to more staid, regular subdivision patterns. Many of the coolest sounds tend toward the foggy reverb spectrum. Removing high end, piling on feedback, and adding the woozy, drunken drift from modulation creates fascinating backdrops for slow, sparse chord melodies. Faster modulations throb and swirl like old BBC Radiophonic Workshop sci-fi sound designs.
By themselves, the modulations have their own broad appeal. Chorus tones are rarely the archetypal Roland Jazz Chorus or CE type—tending to be a bit darker and mistier. But they do a nice job suggesting that texture without lapsing into caricature. There are also really cool rotary-speaker-like textures and vibrato sounds that offer alternatives to go-to industry standards.
The Verdict
The SDE-3’s many available sounds and textures would be appealing at $219—even without the stereo and panning connectivity options, a useful hold function, and expression pedal control that opens up additional options. The panning capabilities, in particular, sparked all kinds of thoughts about studio applications. Mastering the SDE-3 takes just a little study—certain polyrhythms can be dramatically reshaped by the interactivity of other controls and you need to take care to achieve identical results twice. But this is a pedal that, by virtue of its relative simplicity and richness and breadth of sounds, exceeds the utility of some similarly priced rivals, all while opening up possibilities well outside the simple echo realm
Reader: T. Moody
Hometown: Myrtle Beach, South Carolina
Guitar: The Green Snake
Reader T. Moody turned this Yamaha Pacifica body into a reptilian rocker.
I have always loved the reverse headstock, simply because nothing says 1987 (the best year in the history of the world) like a reverse headstock. The pickups are both Seymour Duncan—an SH-1N in the neck position and TB-4 in the bridge, both in a very cool lime green color. Right when these pickups got listed, the Buy It Now button once again lit up like the Fourth of July. I am a loyal disciple of Sperzel locking tuners and think Bob Sperzel was a pure genius, so I knew those were going on this project even before I started on it. I also knew that I wanted a Vega-Trem; those units are absolutely amazing.
When the body arrived, I thought it would be cool to do some kind of burst around the yellow so I went with a neon green. It turned out better than I imagined. Next up was the shaping and cutting of the pickguard. I had this crocodile-type, faux-leather material that I glued on the pickguard and then shaped to my liking. I wanted just a single volume control and no tone knob, because, like King Edward (Van Halen) once said, “Your volume is your tone.”
T. Moody
I then shaped and glued the faux-leather material in the cavity. The tuning knobs, volume knob, pickguard, screws, and selector switch were also painted in the lemon-lime paint scheme. I put everything together, installed the pickups, strung it up, set it up, plugged it in, and I was blown away. I think this is the best-playing and -sounding guitar I have ever tried.
The only thing missing was the center piece and strap. The latter was easy because DiMarzio makes their ClipLock in neon green. The center piece was more difficult because originally, I was thinking that some kind of gator-style decoration would be cool. In the end, I went with a green snake, because crocodiles ain’t too flexible—and they’re way too big to fit in a pickup cavity!
The Green Snake’s back is just as striking as the front.
