Cannibal Corpse is an American death metal band from Buffalo, New York, noted for its controversial and ultra- violent lyrics and imagery, founded in 1988 by Chris Barnes, Bob Rusay, Jack Owen, Alex Webster and Paul Mazurkiewicz. The band is on the Metal Blade Records label. The band had a brief appearance in the movie Ace Ventura: Pet Detective. Cannibal Corpse is noted as the most successful death metal band of the Sound Scan era, having combined worldwide record sales of over one million copies with virtually no radio or television exposure. It's regarded as one of the longest lasting, persistent and best-known bands in the death metal scene.
Cannibal Corpse formed from the ashes of three area death metal bands, Beyond Death (Webster, Owen), Leviathan (Barnes), and Tirant Sin (Barnes, Rusay, Mazurkiewicz). The band played their first show at Buffalo's River Rock Cafe in April, 1989, shortly after recording a five-song demo tape. Within a year of that first gig, the band were signed to Metal Blade Records and their full-length, debut album, Eaten Back To Life, was released in August, 1990.
Cannibal Corpse's music is very fast and is known for its very explicit lyrics and ferocious tempo, singing style known as death growl and by their very explicit imagery on its album covers. Their albums are censored and banned in several countries, including Germany, where they are not allowed to play any song from one of their first three albums in concert, not allowed to play at all in the state of Bavaria, not allowed to display the original cover images (drawn by Vincent Locke), or print the lyrics in the CD booklets, etc.