Six Feet Under -- 'Death Rituals' [review]

Six Feet Under - Death Rituals
Metal Blade Records (11/11/08)
Death metal

Fronted by the most prolific vocalist in death metal, Six Feet Under has crafted another killer album, chock-full of groove, and driven by Chris Barnes’ inhuman, guttural wails.

The band keeps its trademark, foreboding groove-riffs in full effect on songs like “Eulogy for the Undead” (which features some great, technical guitar breakdowns), “Seed of Filth” and “Death By Machete”.

And Barnes is an absolute beast on the microphone, having never sounded better than on tracks like “Involuntary Movement of Dead Flesh” and “None Will Escape”, with his trademark, low-toned growls and nuanced screams, effectively turning his voice into another instrument.

Leaving Cannibal Corpse was the best thing to ever happen to Barnes. While Corpse has begun to really spin its wheels over the past three or four albums, Six Feet Under has found a way to maintain its edge, crafting classic death metal and then throwing in just enough groove to keep things from becoming repetitive (check out the cover of the forgotten Motley Crue classic “Bastard”, not only for the groove but also for Barnes' unbelievably deep growls). The songs are more than just constant blast-beats, as Six Feet Under can do the straight-forward death-metal thing, and it can get pretty boring. This time around, the band throws plenty of metal riffs into the mix, giving the album a more dynamic sound.

This type of music isn’t for everyone. That said, Six Feet Under has definitely put together the album of its career. The sound is varied and dynamic, and Barnes, as always, is a gem in the genre, and the band is slowly affirming a spot as a death-metal legend. What Death Rituals shows is that the band could actually craft a solid cross-over metal album if it really wanted to.

The Rotted -- 'Get Dead or Die Trying' [review]

The Rotted - Get Dead or Die Trying
Metal Blade Records (7/8/08)
Death metal

Witness the evolution of a band.

When Gorerotted charged onto the metal scene in 2002, the band was your typical death metal outfit (à la Cannibal Corpse), with its over-the-top imagery and offensive lyrics. But rather than languish in the underground, the band grew and changed with each effort. The punk aesthetic so prevalent in earlier material slowly gave way to more expansive musicianship. The dueling vocal attack was phased out. And now, with not only a name change (The Rotted), but also a change in lyrical content and presentation, the band has managed to position itself as one of metal's next big things.

Not bad for a six-year span.

With Get Dead or Die Trying, The Rotted have served up one choking, turgid mass of death metal, tempered with just the right amount of thrash, grind and extreme elements to position the group as one of the premier new-school death metal bands on the scene.

Every track is chock full of growls, snarls, machine-gun drumming and glorious riffs. In fact, every one comes across as a death metal masterpiece. More notable are the subtle moments the band works into some of the songs. Take the killer breakdown and guitar solo on "Angel of Meth", or the sick groove hiding just under the surface during the chorus on "The Howling", or the totally out-of-place instrumental "A Brief Moment of Regret" (obviously thrown on there to exploit the band's constantly improving musical chops). There are moments of thrash-inspired bliss to close out "The Body Tree", and in the straight-forward metallic assault of "It's Like There's a Party in My Mouth (And Everyone's Being Sick)".

And perhaps the best and potentially most overlooked offering on the disc would be the album closer, a cover of the theme music from 28 Days Later. Aside from being a simply fantastic take on the song, it works as a mission statement for the band. While earlier in its career they chose to pull inspiration from the goriest flicks imaginable, this new approach is finding horror in the mundane and every day elements of life—much like 28 Days Later relied more on story and human interaction as opposed to being a straight-ahead zombie movie brimming with gore. Very nice choice.

This is still an extreme album, so the fan base is only so big. But The Rotted have managed to craft a killer (no pun intended) death metal release, with enough other elements pulled in to have something to offer to most fans of the metal genre. Perhaps not yet one of metal's finest, with this effort The Rotted are surely proving the band at least deserves a spot in the conversation.

Cryptopsy -- 'The Unspoken King' [review]

Cryptopsy - The Unspoken King
Century Media Records (6/24/08)
Technical death metal

While not completely rare, it's not every day you see the type of blowback like that which is plaguing Cryptopsy for its latest release. The band is getting negative reviews across the boards from longtime fans, who are accusing them of selling out to the metalcore scene to make money. Hell, the last time a furor like this was reached in metal circles was probably back in 2003 when Metallica released St. Anger.

So is all the hate really warranted?

Cryptopsy was upfront before the release of this album. The Unspoken King was going to mark a new direction and be more experimental for the band. Before hiring frontman Matt McGachy, the band said it was looking for someone who could sing clean as well as do the usual growls.

The Unspoken King opens inauspiciously enough. "Worship Your Demons" is a quick little kick in the teeth, an extreme helping of straight-up death metal, as McGachy immediately slides into the lead vocalist slot with vengeance, serving up guttural wails with little effort.

However, the following track, "The Headsmen" is much more dynamic in its assault. Flo Mounier absolutely destroys with his drumming, combining speed and precision in such a way few others seem able to do (never sounding completely out-of-control or taking over the track). The guitar work incorporates more technical aspects as well.

"Silence the Tyrants" marks the last of the typical Cryptopsy attack. The song has a lot of really interesting groove underlying the usual death-metal fare, but is otherwise nondescript.

And then this train just seems to derail.

On "Bemoan the Martyr", the band seems to be channeling the Deftones at one moment before sliding back into its usual approach. (The cleaner, wailing vocals bookend the song, which actually makes things sound forced in this case.)

And that's pretty much how the rest of the album plays out; the death-metal staples are tempered with cleaner singing and slower moments. There's some truly inspired, intricate guitar play on "Resurgence of an Empire", and McGachy has some great clean vocals on "The Plagued" and "Contemplate Regicide". Plus, there's a couple of breakdowns thrown in for good measure. And take a listen to the great bridge thrown in to the middle of "Leach", which is probably the best song on the album.

In the end, it would appear that fans may have overreacted with The Unspoken King. Death metal is not the most inventive or imaginative genre, and Cryptopsy isn't the first band to attempt to pull in different elements to shake things up a bit. The band actually doesn't do half-bad with this effort. In fact, the biggest issue to take with this album is actually due to something you can't even hear. The group went through the trouble to hire on a keyboard player (Maggy Durand, listed as a permanent band member), yet any elements she may add to the songs is either overpowered by everything else or nonexistent altogether.

The playlist was put together perfectly, as the new "sound" is incorporated a little at a time until the listener gets used to where the band was headed. And the cleaner moments really add an interesting dynamic to the band, especially on a song like "Bound Dead", where the vocals are multi-tracked at times with a subtle growl under the clean vocals. This is what Cryptopsy should be doing more of if this is truly the direction the band hopes to follow.

Unfortunately, a lot of times the cleaner material comes across as contrived, and the changes seem to be there just to exist, instead of making sense from a song structure standpoint. This makes most of the album seem torn in different directions for absolutely no reason.

In the end, you're left with an unfocused effort that has its moments and shows potential growth for the future. "Bound Dead" (which is phenomenal, by the way) and "Leach" are obvious high points. The rest is a mixed bag.

Embrace the End -- 'Ley Lines' [review]

Embrace the End - Ley Lines
Century Media (4/15/08)
Metalcore / Deathcore

The press material for Embrace the End's latest offering compares the band to a cinderblock tornado, that really is the perfect way to describe this band, which incorporates elements from a variety of sub-genres of metal and hints of hardcore into one messy, extreme, metallic concoction.

The vocals shift from strained screeches to death-metal wails. And the band does a great job of incorporating these moments into each song to really sell the total package. Perhaps no song does it better than "Intensity in Ten Cities". The drumming is completely frantic, but always sounds controlled. It carries this plodding beat one minute, and then explodes into a machine-gun assault the next. And the guitarists have equal fun, trading mind-bending riffs and then shifting into an all-out assault of chords. The band tiptoes around this gorge of progressive metal without falling into the void, and then shifts on a dime to this goliath of rage.

Another shining moment on Ley Lines comes in the simplest of forms—the two-minute "Denim on Denim Hate Crime" melds inspiration from the most extreme ends of the metal spectrum, but never gets so loud and obnoxious that you can't stand the assault. (Think a combination of Cannibal Corpse and Pantera, but with a hardcore soul.)

There's some inspired guitar play throughout "Trainwreck on the John Galt Line", and the acoustic work on "Pity and the Road to Bimini" sounds fantastic. (The ethereal tone of the music, overall, really adds an interesting juxtaposition to the vocals later on, giving the band this added dimension missing from most of the other songs on here.) And the technical precision on "Overnighter" really makes you appreciate the musicianship of the various members and how they are able take all these elements and make a cohesive song.

The band does a nice job perfecting that we're-spinning-almost-out-of-control-but-know-exactly-what-we're-doing constant tempo-shifting for the most part, though it gets a little tiresome at times. Take "Ride It Like You Stole It", which starts promisingly enough with some really unique rhythm guitar work, but then totally abandons it for the stutter-stop approach instead. The same thing happens later on the title-track.

And that, in a nutshell, is the weakness of this album. The band isn't completely off-the-wall, like early Norma Jean, for example, but the approach gets real old after a while, unless you're a band like Between the Buried and Me. (Then again, BTBAM is throwing all genres of music into the mix, so it’s not quite the same thing.)

This type of music isn't for everybody. Hell, it isn't for a lot of people, but if you actually listen to it, a lot, the chaos and brutality all starts to make sense. Ley Lines isn't perfect, but this type of music isn't meant to be.

Obituary -- 'Xecutioner's Return' [review]

Obituary - Xecutioner's Return
Candlelight Records (8/28/07)
Death metal



Obituary has once again proved its place among the metal and death metal elite.

Let's be honest, 2005's Frozen in Time was a stellar comeback album, but its sole purpose was to show that the band still had what it took to make killer metal. With that established, Obituary set out to craft what will ultimately rank up amongst its best efforts (did anyone think it was possible to even approach Cause of Death-era work?).

The shift in home label (the band had been on Roadrunner for its entire career) and loss of longtime lead guitarist Allen West did little to slow the band down. Newcomer Ralph Santolla's addition appears seamless. In fact, it may have offered up an added creative spark as Santolla does have a more deliberate approach to his playing and things seem to be a little more thought-out at times.

The classic Obituary sound -- the slow, sludgy guitar -- is back in full effect. Tracks like "Feel the Pain" and "Bloodshot" crawl out of the speakers like a corpse. But the band still manages to incorporate a faster thrash feel to songs like "Drop Dead", or the guitar solos on "Seal Your Fate" and "Face Your God", creating an absolute avalanche of seething metal.

Obituary is one of death metal's best outfits for a reason; John Tardy's guttural and growled vocals are always clean and easy to decipher, as the band's song structures are pretty simple and straightforward, yet they still manage to make them sound elaborate. While a lot of their contemporaries seem to overstay their welcome or become overly repetitive, Obituary still sound fresh and imaginative (perhaps due to their extended hiatus a few years ago). Whatever the case, Obituary is a band that inspired and continues to inspire many metal bands out there today.

With Xecutioner's Return, Obituary manages to release an album no one thought it was still capable of creating. From the classic-sounding "Evil Ways" to the haunting "In Your Head", to the seven-minute opus "Contrast the Dead", Obituary proves it has a lot more to offer fans.

Obituary is one of those bands that will never be in the mainstream. While longtime fans already know how good the music is -- it's time for a new generation of fans to discover this band.