Vile is the fifth studio album

Studio album

A studio album is an album made up of tracks recorded in the controlled environment of a recording studio. A studio album contains newly written and recorded or previously unreleased or remixed material, distinguishing itself from a compilation or reissue album of previously recorded material, or...

 by American death metal

Death metal

Death metal is an extreme subgenre of heavy metal. It typically employs heavily distorted guitars, tremolo picking, deep growling vocals, blast beat drumming, minor keys or atonality, and complex song structures with multiple tempo changes....

 band Cannibal Corpse

Cannibal Corpse

Cannibal Corpse is an American death metal band from Buffalo, New York. Formed in 1988, the band has released eleven studio albums, one box set, and one live album...

. It was released in 1996 through Metal Blade Records

Metal Blade Records

Metal Blade Records is a record label which was founded by Brian Slagel in 1982. The U.S. corporate office for Metal Blade is located in Agoura Hills, California. It also has offices in Arizona, Germany, Japan, Canada, and the UK. The label is distributed in the U.S. by Sony BMG Music...

. It was originally titled Created to Kill (which is featured in the Cannibal Corpse Box set) and was recorded with founding vocalist Chris Barnes

Chris Barnes (musician)

Chris Barnes is an American singer-songwriter, best known as a death metal vocalist recognized for his very low guttural vocals and explicitly violent lyrics...

. Before the album was released, Barnes was kicked out of the band, which then brought in Monstrosity

Monstrosity (band)

Monstrosity is a death metal band originating from Fort Lauderdale, Florida during the death metal scene of the early 1990s. Vocalist, George "Corpsegrinder" Fisher and drummer, Lee Harrison, were the founders of Monstrosity. Harrison had just left the band Malevolent Creation and George Fisher...

 vocalist George "Corpsegrinder" Fisher

George Fisher (musician)

George "Corpsegrinder" Fisher is the vocalist for the American death metal band Cannibal Corpse and the lesser-known melodic death metal band Paths of Possession. He previously recorded two albums with Florida's Monstrosity before leaving and joining Cannibal Corpse in late 1995, replacing former...

 to finish the album's vocal work. Fisher re-recorded all of the vocal tracks and the band released the album under the new title Vile. Vile also marks the last album featuring guitarist Rob Barrett until Kill

Kill (album)

Kill is the tenth studio album by American death metal band Cannibal Corpse, released on March 21, 2006. This release marks the return of guitarist Rob Barrett, who had previously played on The Bleeding and Vile. The European version of the album comes with a live DVD filmed in Strasbourg in 2004...

, and features a brand new band logo, because the previous logo was owned and trademarked by the departing Chris Barnes.

During the Vile sessions, "The Undead Will Feast" from Eaten Back to Life

Eaten Back to Life

Eaten Back to Life is the debut album by American death metal band Cannibal Corpse. It was released on 17 August 1990 through Metal Blade Records. The album was banned in Germany and other countries because of the violent cover and the extreme nature of the lyrics. Glen Benton of Deicide and...

was re-recorded with Fisher on vocals. This version of the song would appear on the Worm Infested

Worm Infested

Worm Infested is the second EP by American death metal band Cannibal Corpse released in 2003 through Metal Blade Records.-Track listing:#"Systematic Elimination" – 2:53...

EP in 2003.

The album was re-released in 2006 with new liner notes and a bonus DVD (entitled "Vile Live") featuring a full concert from the Vile tour, during which many songs from the album are performed.

Vile was the first death metal

Death metal

Death metal is an extreme subgenre of heavy metal. It typically employs heavily distorted guitars, tremolo picking, deep growling vocals, blast beat drumming, minor keys or atonality, and complex song structures with multiple tempo changes....

 album to appear on the Billboard 200 chart, debuting at No.151.

Vile was also the last Corpse album to feature Scott Burns

Scott Burns (producer)

Scott Burns is an American computer engineer and an ex-music producer of death metal music, resident at Morrisound Recording studio in Tampa, Florida in late 1980s and 1990s.-Biography:...

 as the producer.

Reviews

"Fisher brought a vocal dynamism and character that livened up the band's six-year-old sound. Fisher's ability to match the musical intensity and rhythm of Vile's more complicated assemblages of riffs created a more sophisticated yet equally tortuous essence." "Tracks like 'Devoured by Vermin' and 'Bloodlands' feature more complex, focused, and just plain interesting musical ideas as well as precise execution. Fans of death metal who haven't yet discovered Cannibal Corpse would be wise to give Vile an open-minded listen".

Track listing

Personnel

Performers

• Rob Barrett
  Rob Barrett
  Rob Barrett is the rhythm guitarist for the death metal band Cannibal Corpse and currently resides in Tampa, FL. He joined in 1993 and left in 1997, but rejoined in 2005. He features on the albums The Bleeding, Vile, Kill, and Evisceration Plague...
  
   – guitar
  Electric guitar
  An electric guitar is a guitar that uses the principle of direct electromagnetic induction to convert vibrations of its metal strings into electric audio signals. The signal generated by an electric guitar is too weak to drive a loudspeaker, so it is amplified before sending it to a loudspeaker...
  
  
• George Fisher
  George Fisher (musician)
  George "Corpsegrinder" Fisher is the vocalist for the American death metal band Cannibal Corpse and the lesser-known melodic death metal band Paths of Possession. He previously recorded two albums with Florida's Monstrosity before leaving and joining Cannibal Corpse in late 1995, replacing former...
  
   – vocals
  Singing
  Singing is the act of producing musical sounds with the voice, and augments regular speech by the use of both tonality and rhythm. One who sings is called a singer or vocalist. Singers perform music known as songs that can be sung either with or without accompaniment by musical instruments...
  
  
• Paul Mazurkiewicz
  Paul Mazurkiewicz
  Paul Mazurkiewicz is the Polish-American drummer of Cannibal Corpse, and one of two remaining original members, the other being bassist Alex Webster.-Musical History:...
  
   – drums
  Drum kit
  A drum kit is a collection of drums, cymbals and often other percussion instruments, such as cowbells, wood blocks, triangles, chimes, or tambourines, arranged for convenient playing by a single person ....
  
  
• Jack Owen
  Jack Owen
  Jack Owen is an American guitarist, best known for his work in the death metal genre. He was one of the founding members of Cannibal Corpse. He stayed with the band from their formation in 1988 until 2004 when he left because he wanted to move on as stated in the Centuries of Torment DVD...
  
   – guitar
• Alex Webster
  Alex Webster
  Alex Webster is an American bass player, who is best known as a member of the American death metal band Cannibal Corpse. He is one of two current members who were of the original lineup of Cannibal Corpse, the other being drummer Paul Mazurkiewicz...
  
   – bass
  Bass guitar
  The bass guitar is a stringed instrument played primarily with the fingers or thumb , or by using a pick....
  
  

Production

• Scott Burns
  Scott Burns (producer)
  Scott Burns is an American computer engineer and an ex-music producer of death metal music, resident at Morrisound Recording studio in Tampa, Florida in late 1980s and 1990s.-Biography:...
  
   – producer
  Record producer
  A record producer is an individual working within the music industry, whose job is to oversee and manage the recording of an artist's music...
  
  , engineer
  Audio engineering
  An audio engineer, also called audio technician, audio technologist or sound technician, is a specialist in a skilled trade that deals with the use of machinery and equipment for the recording, mixing and reproduction of sounds. The field draws on many artistic and vocational areas, including...
  
  , mixing
  Audio mixing (recorded music)
  In audio recording, audio mixing is the process by which multiple recorded sounds are combined into one or more channels, most commonly two-channel stereo. In the process, the source signals' level, frequency content, dynamics, and panoramic position are manipulated and effects such as reverb may...
  
  
• Cannibal Corpse
  Cannibal Corpse
  Cannibal Corpse is an American death metal band from Buffalo, New York. Formed in 1988, the band has released eleven studio albums, one box set, and one live album...
  
   – producer
• Mike Fuller – mastering
  Audio mastering
  Mastering, a form of audio post-production, is the process of preparing and transferring recorded audio from a source containing the final mix to a data storage device ; the source from which all copies will be produced...
  
  
• Brian James – design
  Design
  Design as a noun informally refers to a plan or convention for the construction of an object or a system while “to design” refers to making this plan...
  
  
• Vincent Locke
  Vince Locke
  Vincent Locke is an American comic book artist known for his work on Deadworld and A History of Violence and for his ultraviolent album covers for death metal band Cannibal Corpse.-Biography:...
  
   – artwork
  Album cover
  An album cover is the front of the packaging of a commercially released audio recording product, or album. The term can refer to either the printed cardboard covers typically used to package sets of 10" and 12" 78 rpm records, single and sets of 12" LPs, sets of 45 rpm records , or the front-facing...
  
  , illustration
  Illustration
  An illustration is a displayed visualization form presented as a drawing, painting, photograph or other work of art that is created to elucidate or dictate sensual information by providing a visual representation graphically.- Early history :The earliest forms of illustration were prehistoric...
  
  s
• Brian Slagel
  Brian Slagel
  Brian Slagel is the owner and founder of Metal Blade Records. Slagel is known for giving Metallica their first break in 1982, with an appearance on Metal Massacre, a compilation album on Metal Blade, and has since released seminal albums by Slayer, Mercyful Fate, Cannibal Corpse, Fates Warning,...
  
   – executive producer
  Executive producer
  An executive producer is a producer who is not involved in any technical aspects of the film making or music process, but who is still responsible for the overall production...
  
  

February 3, 1997

1. "Perverse Suffering"
2. "Stripped, Raped and Strangled"
3. "Covered with Sores"
4. "Monolith"
5. "Addicted to Vaginal Skin"
6. "Force Fed Broken Glass"
7. "Fucked with a Knife"
8. "Gutted"
9. "Bloodlands"
10. "Shredded Humans"
11. "Staring Through the Eyes of the Dead"
12. "A Skull Full of Maggots"
13. "Devoured by Vermin"
14. "Hammer Smashed Face"

February 4, 1997

1. "Pulverized"
2. "Puncture Wound Massacre"
3. "Mummified in Barbed Wire"
4. "Orgasm Through Torture"

Created to Kill

Several of the songs from the finished album were written while Barnes was still in the band, and were recorded in demo form with his vocals. These tracks were collected for disc 3 of the 15 Year Killing Spree

15 Year Killing Spree

15 Year Killing Spree is a box set by the American death metal band Cannibal Corpse. The cover art contains demons and skeletons placed in windows in a castle surrounded by a moat of blood...

box set. They are:

1. "Unburied Horror" – 3:28
2. "Mummified in Barbed Wire" – 3:07
3. "Gallery of The Obscene" – 3:37
4. "To Kill Myself" – 3:41
5. "Bloodlands" – 4:29
6. "Puncture Wound Massacre" – 1:43
7. "Devoured by Vermin" – 3:11