Album Review: Cannabis Corpse – Tube of the Resinated

Cannabis Corpse – Tube of the Resinated
Forcefield Records – FF009 – 27 April 2008
By Paddy Walsh

Okay, okay – it’s not the most sophisticated metal you’re ever likely to hear – and no prizes for guessing who these stoners were apeing. Tube of the Resinated is best viewed as a tribute album of sorts, as each track name parodies a Cannibal Corpse song; so for ‘Mummified in Barb Wire’ we get ‘Mummified in Bong Water’, and ‘Fucked by a Knife’ becomes ‘Fucked by Northern Lights’. You can envisage the wheezy scoffs of smokey sniggers that presaged this project. And yes, this is exactly the kind of thing anyone who’s been in a weed-injected stupor has dreamt up at some point, yet it’s interesting that these folks actually got it together long enough to go and record an album. Woah!

Cynicism aside, this release has a certain niftiness to it that marks it as possibly the best homage to Cannibal Corpse to date. Each song is primed with the kind of detuned, fast-paced Floridian riffery that was de rigeur in the early 90s. Their tongues may be planted firmly in cheek, but they’ve really got the chops to back it up. Tube of the Resinated is both brutal and catchy, and with just enough grit so that it could actually be a Cannibal Corpse album were it not for thr whiff of skunk replacing all the bodyparts. Because Cannabis Corpse features members of thrash revivalists Municipal Waste, there is a sure-fire ability to evoke the spirit of a certain era at work here. Nudges to their chief influence abound, often in Weedgrinder’s vocals – check out the scream at the beginning of ‘Mummified by Bong Water’ as it effortlessly evokes the fantastic ‘Devoured by Vermin’.

They don’t make ‘em like this anymore, not even Cannibal Corpse do in fact, so if you’ve got a hankering for some Vile or Gallery of Suicide type death metal stylings, then Tube of the Resinated is for you. If you’re expecting a modern take on the classic Tampa formula then you’ll probably find this disappointing, as it’s hardly cutting edge, but then ‘Gallery of Stupid High’ (ho ho) has a mid-paced groove that slightly steps out of Cannibal Corpse’s shoes momentarily. If you need to be challenged by your death metal in ‘08, then avoid this, but if you need to headbang in a major way, and you’re not predjudiced against the obvious kowtowing at play, then you could do worse.

Official Cannabis Corpse Website
Official Forcefield Records Website