By 1990, death metal was nothing new on the scene. Neither was thrash... or grindcore (though grindcore was the younger cousin to the other genres). More often than not, metal bands focused their music through only one stylistic sieve.
And then came Chris Barnes and Cannibal Corpse. Their debut effort Eaten Back To Life does try to merge all three worlds in the span of 36 minutes and 11 tracks. And, while it's an admirable effort, it doesn't fully succeed - though it still shows quite a bit of promise.
Wait... grindcore? You might be asking where the blast beats are from Paul Mazurkiewicz's drum kit - and, I'd admit, they're not there. But the style of his drumming, along with the grinding guitar work of Bob Rusay and Jack Owen, is reminiscent of such bands as Napalm Death and Carcass - and the lyrical content from Barnes certainly compares to anything Carcass was doing. I mean, you don't come up with a song like "A Skull Full Of Maggots" over a cup of coffee and a scone.
But Cannibal Corpse did try to establish their own style, incorporating some aspects of thrash metal into the overall death metal style they embraced. In that regard, they succeeded - but more often than not, it morphs into a bit of sonic overload, as everything tends to mush together. They had the right idea with their merging of musical styles; they just were still on the road to perfecting it. I admit, it's been a while since I gave deep listens to other Cannibal Corpse albums... but I, for one, was looking for a little more substance to the guitar work. I know I'm not going to be hearing barre chords constantly, but if they really wanted to embrace their love of thrash metal bands, they'd work a little bit more style into their playing.
Lyrically, Barnes's delivery style is cleaner than some of the genre, but you still need a lyric sheet to fully decipher what he's singing about. Tracks like "Bloody Chunks," "Born In A Casket" and "Buried In The Backyard" definitely set Cannibal Corpse apart from many of the other bands in the metal genre. And, one has to admit, there is a bit of entertainment factor in these - even for people who don't like extreme metal. In some ways, this is the musical equivalent of watching a horror film, only these are delivered in far shorter chunks.
So, is Eaten Back To Life good? To a point, yes - but it also shows a band still discovering just who they were, and what they wanted their overall sound and songwriting to be. It's a good first effort, but there was much more room to grow.