Founding Cannibal Corpse Vocalist Chris Barnes: “I Despise What [Death Metal] Has Become”

Chris Barnes by Francisco Peres Gomez, via Wikipedia.
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There is no more legendary death metal band than Tampa-via-Buffalo goremongers Cannibal Corpse, who are fronted by none other than George “Corpsegrinder” Fisher. But the band’s first four studio releases were with vocalist Chris Barnes, the death metal vocal pioneer who now fronts stoner horror metal act Six Feet Under. And apparently, Barnes isn’t happy about the state of death metal in 2022, taking to Twitter to vent his loathing for “what this genre has become.”

What set Chris off? A lot of fans seem to think it was this round-table discussion hosted by Knotfest and featuring Chase Mason of Arizona’s Gatecreeper, Trevor Strnad of Michigan’s The Black Dahlia Murder, Alex Jones of Rochester’s Undeath, and, heyo, Corpsegrinder. The video, which aired January 19th, saw the vocalists discussing the genre’s early years, what bands influenced them, and where they see it heading. It all seems pretty harmless.

Check it out:

Fun, right? But apparently, Chris didn’t care for the video.

“I just watched a ‘death metal’ podcast on YouTube that was done about a week ago with the ‘top’ death metal vocalists .. it made me physically ill,” tweeted Barnes. “I despise what this genre has become.”

One dude who wasn’t just going to let that slide was Hatebreed frontman Jamey Jasta, who told Barnes to come on his podcast to discuss it. Barnes passed, saying, “I have no need to jump on that bandwagon you guys got that” and “Ain’t here to play that game. You have fun tho bro.”

“you’re the one playing games,” responded Jasta. “you ‘hate what the genre has become’ but do you ever promote or discuss new bands or try & help build anything in the genre?”

So, there you go: Chris Barnes doesn’t like modern death metal. Hell of a bummer. Here’s Undeath’s new single, it fucking rips:

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Words by Chris Krovatin

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