Gallery of Suicide
| Gallery of Suicide | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
 | ||||
| Studio album by | ||||
| Released | April 21, 1998 | |||
| Studio | Morrisound Recordings, Tampa, Florida | |||
| Genre | Death metal | |||
| Length | 44:13 | |||
| Label | Metal Blade | |||
| Producer | Jim Morris | |||
| Cannibal Corpse chronology | ||||
| ||||
| Review scores | |
|---|---|
| Source | Rating |
| AllMusic |    [1] |
| Collector's Guide to Heavy Metal | 7/10[2] |
Gallery of Suicide is the sixth studio album by American death metal band Cannibal Corpse, released on April 21, 1998, through Metal Blade Records.
It is the first Cannibal Corpse album to feature former Nevermore guitarist Pat O'Brien. It is also the band's last album to be recorded at Morrisound Recordings in Tampa, where the band had recorded since 1990's Eaten Back to Life.
Background and recording
[edit]Pat O'Brien had the track "Stabbed in the Throat" written in its entirety by the time of his earliest sessions with the band. George Fisher recalled working with producer Jim Morris: "I talked with him about some of the lyrics and he was dying with laughter! One time, he was laughing while I was recording – so I said, ‘Dude, did I mess up?’ and he said, ‘No, no – how are you doing this? What the fuck are you doing? These lyrics are out of control…’ There’s some fast shit on there!"[3]
Music and lyrics
[edit]Gallery of Suicide has been referred to as "an hour-long symphony of cruelty."[3] The album's guitar work has been described as “incessant” and “buzzing.” Bassist Alex Webster said the addition of Pat O'Brien on lead guitar brought "that shredding firepower that we’d never had before."[4][5] George Fisher said: "Pat added technique to the band that we didn’t have before. We’re not super-technical, but we were definitely heading in that direction." Fisher also stated his belief that Gallery is one of the most experimental releases of the band's career, expressing that the album's blast beats reminded him of black metal. He said, "It wasn’t on purpose – it just turned out that way." Webster assessed: "It’s one of the darkest albums we ever did: there’s dark melodies, dark lyrics... I mean, all our albums are dark, with songs about murder and so on, but there’s something extra-dark about that one!" [3] In addition to "Blood Drenched Execution," O'Brien co-wrote "From Skin to Liquid" with Webster. Thematically, the song's title implies the topic of decomposition of a cadaver. Webster said: "It was the first really, really slow song we ever did and it also had no lyrics. [...] I feel like "From Skin to Liquid" was one of the first songs that we did that kind of showed that we were able to be heavy without using our old bag of tricks necessarily all the time. We were heavy without being fast and without having gory lyrics or any lyrics. [...] It's got a really creepy vibe to it."[6][3]
Artwork
[edit]The album's cover artwork was done by Vince Locke. According to Metal Hammer, the album's cover artwork "depicts a grim dungeon in which a group of characters are hanging, shooting and disembowelling themselves." George Fisher explained: "People go in there and commit suicide, and if you’re unfortunate enough to be curious to see what this gallery is about, or crazy enough, you can go inside." A censored version of the album cover was also created. Alex Webster described the censored cover as "really dark and eerie-looking."[3]
Reception
[edit]Stephen Thomas Erlewine of AllMusic called the album "monotonous" and "predictable" in an underwhelming review.[7] Drummer Paul Mazurkiewicz believes the album is underrated. Former guitarist Pat O'Brien said, "Some albums, people are gonna like, and some albums people aren't going to like as much or they're not going to like. I remember when I first joined the band, when we did Gallery of Suicide, there were a lot of people who hated it, but now a lot of people seem to like it; it's kinda weird."[8]
Track listing
[edit]| No. | Title | Lyrics | Music | Vocal patterns | Length |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. | "I Will Kill You" | Alex Webster | Webster | Webster | 2:47 |
| 2. | "Disposal of the Body" | Webster | Webster |
| 1:54 |
| 3. | "Sentenced to Burn" | Webster | Webster |
| 3:06 |
| 4. | "Blood Drenched Execution" |
|
|
| 2:40 |
| 5. | "Gallery of Suicide" | Mazurkiewicz |
|
| 3:55 |
| 6. | "Dismembered and Molested" | Webster |
| Fisher | 1:53 |
| 7. | "From Skin to Liquid" (instrumental) |
| 5:30 | ||
| 8. | "Unite the Dead" | Webster |
| Webster | 3:05 |
| 9. | "Stabbed in the Throat" | Mazurkiewicz | O'Brien | Mazurkiewicz | 3:26 |
| 10. | "Chambers of Blood" | Webster | Webster | Webster | 4:11 |
| 11. | "Headless" | Mazurkiewicz | Webster |
| 2:22 |
| 12. | "Every Bone Broken" | Mazurkiewicz | Owen | Mazurkiewicz | 3:18 |
| 13. | "Centuries of Torment" | Webster | Webster |
| 4:04 |
| 14. | "Crushing the Despised" | Webster |
|
| 1:56 |
| 15. | "Sacrifice" (Japanese Bonus Track) | Sacrifice | 3:03 | ||
| Total length: | 44:13(INT) 47:16(JP) | ||||
Personnel
[edit]Credits adapted from the album liner notes.[9]
- Cannibal Corpse
- George "Corpsegrinder" Fisher – vocals
- Pat O'Brien – guitar
- Jack Owen – guitar
- Alex Webster – bass
- Paul Mazurkiewicz – drums
- Production
- Jim Morris – production, engineering, mixing, mastering
- Artwork and design
- Vincent Locke – cover art
- Brian J. Ames – design
- Al Messerschmidt – photography
- Alison Mohammed – photography
- Studios
- Morrisound Recordings, Tampa, Florida – production, engineering, mixing
- Audio JJ – mastering
References
[edit]- ^ Erlewine, Thomas. Gallery of Suicide - Cannibal Corpse at AllMusic
- ^ Popoff, Martin (2007). The Collector's Guide to Heavy Metal: Volume 3: The Nineties. Burlington, Ontario, Canada: Collector's Guide Publishing. p. 71. ISBN 978-1-894959-62-9.
- ^ a b c d e McIverpublished, Joel (December 28, 2024). ""There's an unlimited amount of bad things happening in the world, real and imagined. It's not hard for us to come up with stuff": The story of Cannibal Corpse's Gallery Of Suicide, the album that helped keep 90s death metal alive". Louder. Retrieved May 20, 2025.
- ^ "Blood, guts and Jim Carrey: How Cannibal Corpse became death metal's first million selling band". March 13, 2024.
- ^ Gallery of Suicide - Cannibal Corpse, retrieved January 7, 2025
- ^ Blabbermouth (September 17, 2008). "A Conversation With CANNIBAL CORPSE's ALEX WEBSTER". BLABBERMOUTH.NET. Retrieved February 17, 2025.
- ^ "Gallery of Suicide - Cannibal Corpse". AllMusic.
- ^ "Cannibal Corpse │ Exclaim!". Cannibal Corpse │ Exclaim!. Retrieved January 23, 2025.
- ^ Gallery of Suicide (booklet). Cannibal Corpse. Metal Blade Records. 1998.
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