Butchered at Birth is the second studio album by American death metal band Cannibal Corpse. It was released on July 1, 1991 through Metal Blade Records.

The album was recorded at Morrisound Recording in Tampa, Florida and was produced by Scott Burns. It is considered to be musically and lyrically more extreme than the band's debut, Eaten Back to Life. The album's music represents an evolution to "pure death metal" from the thrash metal-oriented sound of its predecessor. Barnes stated that the album is a concept album about butchery. Its cover artwork was created by comic book artist Vincent Locke, and depicts a pregnant woman being dissected by zombies.

Butchered remains a notorious entry in the band's discography, and has been censored by various entities at different points in its history.

Cannibal Corpse began writing new material immediately following the release of their debut album, Eaten Back to Life. With their sophomore effort, Cannibal Corpse sought to create a heavier sound and even more gruesome imagery than their debut. The band wrote and rehearsed the album in their storage space in Buffalo.

During this time, the band was having 4-hour practice sessions five days per week. The writing process for the album's instrumentation was a collaborative effort. Guitarist Jack Owen recalled that "everybody was writing tons of shit" and vocalist Chris Barnes said the band was "writing a song every two weeks." Drummer Paul Mazurkiewicz said "it was months of us trying to be the most brutal band on earth." He claims to have written the opening riff in "Gutted."

Following their experience recording Eaten Back to Life at Morrisound Recording in Tampa, the band became entrenched in the growing death metal scene there, and subsequently made frequent trips to the city. The spirit of competition within the scene encouraged the band to keep a quick pace with releases, and Butchered at Birth was recorded over a two-week period. Producer Scott Burns, revered within the Florida death metal scene, assisted the band in refining the sound of their debut to achieve even more dissonant and guttural sonic textures. Burns noted that very little production was required for Barnes' vocals, which he felt "sounded heavy on their own." The album's liner notes explicitly state that no harmonizers were used on the vocal production. Karl Sanders of Nile recalled in the Centuries of Torment documentary that when the album was first released, "people were going, 'how can a human voice do that!?'"

The album represents the band's transition to "pure death metal" from the thrash-orientated sound of their debut, an assessment that is agreed upon by music journalists and the band members themselves. Founding guitarist Jack Owen believes Butchered at Birth showcases the band's greatest evolution between albums. The music is now considered to have a "classic death metal" sound.

The album's style has been called "one dimensional" and "rough around the edges." Owen retrospectively described the album's song structures as "just riff after riff" and not "[making] much sense." According to bassist Alex Webster, "we were convinced the more unorthodox the music, the less mainstream it was. It was heavier to be off-the-wall as far as arrangements go." In addition to its extremely raw songwriting, Butchered is also noted for its "harsh, barely tuned guitars" and its "beehive-wall of white noise" guitar tone. According Zeke Ferrington of Gear Gods, "There’s so much gain and so much treble that you can’t identify individual notes anymore. The guitar lines meld into these indefinite, evolving, waves of unsettling frequencies [...] it actually adds to the revolting brutality of [the] album." Chris Barnes' "grunted" vocals are largely unintelligible. Despite a statement in the album's liner notes that no harmonizers were used on his vocal performance, the album opener "Meathook Sodomy" contains an intro that prominently utilizes the pitch shifting technique on the vocals.