Cannibal Corpse, Death, Morbid Angel CDs - Canadian pressings

Found these three death metal CDs, all Canadian pressings, for $2 each.  Nothing I haven't heard already but the price was right.

Cannibal Corpse - Gallery of Suicide

Not a huge Cannibal fan to begin with, and even then, I'd say I greatly prefer the Barnes era. This is one of the best Corpsegrinder albums though, and probably my overall personal favorite out of his era of the band.

 

Death - Individual Thought Patterns

I recently picked up some other later Death CDs too, but since they aren't Canadian pressings and I'm certainly not in any hurry to listen to The Sound of Perseverance, I'll save those for a future post. I very rarely listen to Death at all beyond the Leprosy era, and when I do, it's either live stuff or occasionally putting on Spiritual Healing to remind myself that I'm really not into it that much.  This era of Death isn't really my thing and does nothing to change my stance, although I will admit the fast section in "Jealousy" definitely reminds me of the Leprosy-era material.  Just a shame it's such a short segment of the song.

Morbid Angel - Covenant

While none of these Canadian versions are that significantly different from other presses, this one is immediately identifiable as Canadian since it has a bilingual explicit lyrics notice on the cover. I completely forgot about the re-recorded version of "Angel of Disease" on here, and it definitely stands out (positively) compared to the other songs on here. I favor the older material of course, but still solid stuff.

Ceremony - The Days Before the Death (2000)

Let's be honest--you can argue all you want about labels that actually care about music and quality, but the bottom line is that the music industry is based on business.  If releasing music wasn't profitable, labels wouldn't exist (well, except for possibly 2 or 3 bullheaded DIY guys doing it as a "statement," but they'd probably all be focused on releasing noise rock and ambient).  So cash-grab releases shouldn't come as a surprise, but this one is more blatant than most--a 14-minute mini-CD that exists to capitalize on the fact that a pre-Morbid Angel Steve Tucker and pre-Cannibal Corpse Pat O'Brien are in the ranks.  Steve Tucker writes in the liner notes that these later musical endeavors show the caliber of the musicians involved in Ceremony.  I'll admit joining two of death metal's most famous bands is no small feat, but both guys were just mid-'90s replacements in bands whose most defining moments and best material were already long behind them.

As critical as the above sounds, musically I actually have no real problem with this release.  It's a 1993 (I think--the recording notes mention '93 but Tucker mentions '92...See the obvious care that went into this?) demo recording, just 3 songs and a 43 sec. acoustic instrumental.  Fairly standard early '90s death metal, not super technical but more proficient than your typical demo-level band.  I was about to say there's a detectable Floridian vibe to it (the band is from Ohio), but then I read inside the booklet that this reissue was mastered at Morrisound.  Go figure.  This is not an obscure gem by any means, but to a certain extent I found it more enjoyable than the MA and CC material Messrs. Tucker and O'Brien played on.

The liner notes mention that this reissue was originally inspired by Darragh O'Leary of Invictus Prod., yet unfortunately this came out on Hammerheart, who gave it one of the most generic layouts possible.  This was obviously cranked out to turn a quick buck and wring the most out of minimal design effort.  There's at least one earlier Ceremony demo too, so I would have rather waited for a more comprehensive discography CD, as any label could have done a better job both presentation and content-wise.  But hey, this cost me 99 cents, and it's certainly worth that.