“Hammer Smashed Face” by Cannibal Corpse

"Hammer Smashed Face" kicks off Tomb of the Mutilated, the third album from American death metal crew Cannibal Corpse, released on Metal Blade in 1992. Paul Mazurkiewicz's drums batter away at a dead sprint, the song drops briefly into a passage steered by Alex Webster's bass, then collapses into a colossal breakdown, with Jack Owen and Bob Rusay grinding out a riff with a genuinely sinister chill.

All five members share the music credit; Chris Barnes wrote the words, a gory, blow-by-blow account of a madman bashing a victim's head to pulp, though Mazurkiewicz has called them tame next to the rest of the album. Scott Burns produced, engineered and mixed it. Many rank it the band's greatest song, and a shortened version in the 1994 comedy Ace Ventura: Pet Detective is the main reason it became their most popular.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.