Music Review: Six Feet Under – Undead

Chris Barnes gets the band almost back on track with simple and consistent pummeling

It’s been so long since Six Feet Under released a few songs worthy of my ears that this feels right. SFU, with their new lineup, take things back to how they were on the first three albums, and throw in a few riffs that could have been on Cannibal Corpse‘s early work. 18 Days, for example. The band sounds in control even as vocalist Chris Barnes starts barking midway as if to protect his weed from pesky stray dogs in the lane.

Barnes, revered for the phenomenal growling he did as the first vocalist of Cannibal Corpse, is now also known for his poor singing on and the silly lyrics he wrote for Six Feet Under‘s last many albums. He sounds just fine singing about his ‘victims’ and their state (missing, lifeless, raped, limbless and other such joyful conditions) and not so fine ranting against anti-drug laws and the criminalization of marijuana users (even if we consider Victim Of The Paranoid one of SFU‘s better songs). He sounds so comfortable singing about how he feels free to kill on Blood On My Hands that you believe the pothead has a fantasy of murdering and getting away with it.

Most of the songs on Undead are not even worth a second listen unless you’re a big fan of Six Feet Under. The album wants to go death n’ roll but doesn’t stop trying to be CC of the Barnes era. The guy must be stoned all the time if he can’t tell how bad his highs (we’re talking about his singing) are, and not even a three-year-old would be scared by the way he goes “Eeeee!”. SFU‘s early work showed an effort at songwriting: it was groovy and catchy as fuck, with Barnes vomiting golden lines like, “I pull your insides out through your lipless mouth.”

It’s weird that the new lineup hasn’t made all that much of a difference to Six Feet Under‘s output. Still, Undead is not as bad as you’d expect a new album from SFU to be, and would be likable if it wasn’t such a disjointed effort. Oh, maybe I shouldn’t use words like ‘disjointed’, for they might make Barnes rasp all the way to the studio for another bong hit.

RATING: 2.5/5

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Music Review: Cannibal Corpse’s Torture

Movie Review: Department

Music Review: Cannibal Corpse – Torture (2012)

Had a smaller band released an album titled Torture, it would’ve been laughed off. But one has to take a couple of steps back in disbelief and fear when one thinks of the Cannibal Corpse logo above the word ‘torture’, because with that name comes a guarantee of unadulterated brutal death metal bliss no other band can match up to the quality of.

The visceral power of this unit is legendary; they come at you like hungry barbarians who’ve chanced upon a sheep, pounding away like it’s the first time they’ve got that chance, surprising you with how they keep their attack fresh each time without succumbing to the pressure of doing something new.

As became their style long ago, Cannibal Corpse begin the album with a frenzied assault: ‘Demented Aggression’ becomes the youngest brother of opening cuts like ‘Priests Of Sodom’ (from Evisceration Plague), ‘Pounded Into Dust’ (from Bloodthirst – my favourite CC record from the Corpsegrinder era)  ‘I Will Kill You’ (Gallery Of Suicide), ‘Devoured By Vermin’ (Vile), ‘Savage Butchery’ (Gore Obsessed) – yeah, I’m going to name them all, or as many as I can think of right now – ‘Staring Through The Eyes Of The Dead’ (The Bleeding), ‘Meathook Sodomy’ (Butchered At Birth) and of course, ‘Hammer-Smashed Face’ (Tomb Of The Mutilated), ramming into you without a warning and preparing you for the next 30 minutes or so of battering, with is done in the usual way: some more pummeling tracks, a couple of fillers, instrumentals or experimental pieces of music dripping with bile. With songs like ‘Encased In Cement’ and ‘Followed Home Then Killed’, Cannibal Corpse assure you they’re going to push ‘As Deep As The Knife Will Go’.

Technically, Cannibal Corpse have never lacked anything: Chris Barnes was perfect for what they were doing back then, and George Fisher is a powerful monster with the richest growls in death metal. What am I doing? It’s pointless talking about Cannibal Corpse’s musicianship – they’re Cannibal Corpse: the band that defines death metal with every album. I’m not sure what other ‘fans’ expect of them, but I certainly don’t want them cave in to the pressure of trying to redefine their style or reinvent themselves and fall flat on their face. To hell with that… it’s thrilling to be reassured with every release that there’s one band that doesn’t care about jumping out of the vast boundaries it has created for itself and the genre.

Cannibal Corpse are relentless on Torture; predictable as you think they are, you can never guess what they’re going to do next. In the river of pus they’ll be hacking cadavers rabidly for a few seconds and then will suddenly throw you a groovy piece of flesh to rip apart as you regenerate in the fountain of blood.

Say what you will about CC, but you’ll always remember them as the most consistent death metal band ever; Cannibal Corpse have always been the best at merging gore-soaked brutality and ghastly horror with top-notch technicality to become a flesh-ripping, bloodthirsty beast that erodes everything in its path.

Torture, exactly like every other Cannibal Corpse album, is brutal death metal at its most sophisticated. It’s overpowering, even if not always overwhelming, and it’s futile trying to fight what was created to kill. We can only decompose in sickness and disease under the rotting pile of carcasses.

Music Review: Evisceration Plague (2009)

Shame on me for writing about Cannibal Corpse’s latest offering almost a year after its release. The gods of death metal stay true to their style on their eleventh killer batch of songs, Evisceration Plague, groovy enough to make you headbang at any time of the day no matter where you are, and brutal enough to make you feel proud as ever to love death metal. Say anything to devalue what Cannibal Corpse bring to the surgery table and I will call you an idiot; to expect anything but pure death metal of the highest quality from Cannibal Corpse is asking to be disqualified from speaking about death metal. The formula remains unchanged (of course!), and murderous as ever, the band flaunts excellent musicianship and its consistent growth through the years on Evisceration Plague. Those whose heads have already been severed by the world’s best death metal band can sit back and enjoy the gore. Never will you hear acoustic rubbish or clean singing or anything wimpy of the sort, and Cannibal Corpse know exactly how to keep things interesting. May the corpse continue decomposing.

RATING: 4/5