Six Feet Under – Death Rituals
Six Feet Under has gotten its fair share of criticism in the death metal community throughout its decade-plus run. Whether it was frontman Chris Barnes’ brutally low grunts, or the simple groove-influenced sound Six Feet Under seems to live-or-die by, the Florida band is one that you either love or hate. They seem to have more on the former side, as the band is still pumping out material, with Death Rituals being their tenth studio album. Their longest one to date, Death Rituals is an improvement over the past couple of releases, but still suffers from several fundamental flaws, especially in the songwriting department.
Groove metal is an acquired taste for most people. The band integrated it with the faster side of death metal, finding a solid balance between the two on earlier releases. On Death Rituals, the song lengths are drastically increased, and the groove takes a hold of the majority of the songs. While guitarist Steve Swanson puts in a commendable effort, the album is boggled down by repetitive riffs, lackluster melodies and another monotonous performance by Barnes, who adds in some cringe-worthy shrieks at a poor attempt to “mix it up.”
It’s not all bad for Death Rituals; when the band goes all out, and leaves the groove at home, things start to click. “Death By Machete” is straightforward death metal, with a tasteful clean electric guitar intro and a good solo by Swanson. “Bastard,” the Mötley Crüe cover, works well for Six Feet Under, save for Barnes’ vocals. “Into The Crematorium” is the fastest song on here, one that would make Cannibal Corpse fans proud. “Murder Addiction” ends Death Rituals on a high note, saving the album from the drawn-out “Ten Deadly Plagues” and two pointless instrumentals.
Death Rituals has a few tracks that will please death metal fans, and Six Feet Under fans will be satisfied with the album, but if you hated the band before, Death Rituals won’t change your mind. The band sounds tight, especially in the guitar department, and Barnes is at his most indecipherable, but Six Feet Under has seemed to have tapped out the songwriting well. Death Rituals has a few redeeming moments in individual tracks, but as a collective whole, turns out to be largely plodding and dull.
Rating: .5/10
Label: Metal Blade
Website: http://www.sfu420.com
By Dan Marsicano
(+22 rating, 6 votes)
man…idk what happened to this band but i really did enjoy the first few albums…Enemy Inside, One Bullet Left, Victim Of The Paranoid…all great tracks from back in the day…i guess theyve just completely burned themselves out smoking too much herb…theyre chill dudes though. When my band opened for em a few years ago we hung out with Terry all day and Took pictures with Chris outside the bus that evening…eh well
0.5 out of 10?
Not to say that the album is good or not, but to give ANY album a rating of 0.5 out of 10 indicates some kind of bias. I think that this review is somewhat accurately written, but all credibility gained is shattered when seeing the rating at the end. To rate something that low is to say that this album will appeal to practically nobody, which is obviously wrong, because many death metalheads I know thoroughly enjoy Death Rituals. It might not be the best album, but unless its Lou Reed’s Metal Machine Music, it should not be rated 0.5 out of 10.
Be more objective in these reviews SMN. Just out of respect for all types of metal.
I would care more about a six foot turd than this album.
The rating was actually suppose to be 5.5 out of 10. I don’t know why it says .5 in the review; in the original document, I definitely put down 5.5. It’s not too big of a deal; I just wanted to set the record straight. Thanks for the postive feedback though.
5.5, ahh that makes sense. Sorry if the earlier comment seemed a little negative, I guess I just assumed that the rating was low since many people hate Six Feet Under. It just made me think of the common subjective anti-death metal viewpoint that many people have, giving it no chance. It was definitely objectively written though, only the .5 threw me off. Makes sense now though, and yeah, the album is definitely a 5.5/10. Good review. :)
Don’t worry about it; I gotten a lot worse feedback than that. Trust me though; you’ll be reading a lot of reviews of death metal from me in the future.
The primary thing that was going through my head during the entirety of Death Rituals was how truly pathetic a vocalist Chris Barnes really is; this is easily the worst vocal performance I’ve ever heard on a death metal album, bar none. These vocals make Lord Worm’s tired showing on Cryptopsy’s Once Was Not sound like the dude from Pagan’s Mind by comparison. Even in the man’s “glory” days in Cannibal Corpse Barnes was never capable of anything more than a one-dimensional, unaggressive grunt, which makes it all the more amazing that he’s actually managed to get this much worse since then. Barne’s choked, indistinct barks are almost hilariously inadequate. He frequently lags behind the music’s tempo, sounds like he’s going to fucking suffocate if he doesn’t catch his breath at times, and occasionally breaks away from the growling to throw in this random garbled screech that had me pissing myself with laughter. The production keeps him mercifully buried, but even low in the mix Barnes turns in a positively embarassing performance, and it was enough to make me want to toss this album and never consider listening to it again.