Album Review: Six Feet Under – “Undead”

It pains me sometimes so see a classic image get shattered. Nobody likes that. Chris Barnes, former vocalist for Cannibal Corpse (on Eaten Back to Life, Butchered at Birth and Tomb of the Mutilated) belted out some wicked sweet Death Metal vocals back in the day. I had always heard of his post-Corpse band Six Feet Under in passing but never took the time to check them out. I have heard absolutely none of their previous work before listening to Undead, where usually I check out a few random songs from a band before I ingest a full album. So Six Feet Under had a clean slate. Had a clean slate. Ladies and djentlemen, this review is going to be swift and brutal.

All the tortured looking faces pretty much sum up this album.

It was awful. It was like the musical equivalent of watching someone kick a puppy. First you stand there screaming “WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING?”, and then you rush over there and try and get that little shit away from that poor puppy. In the case of Undead, I sat there screaming “WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING?”, and then I rushed over to the pause button to try and get that shitty music away from my poor ears.

Going against my instinct of turning it off immediately, I listened to the whole album. It was an unforgiving wasteland of horrible production, mediocre music, and awful vocals. The production made everything seem flat. It wasn’t a raw sound and it wasn’t a clean sound, it was just… sound. The guitars didn’t possess that sort of visceral, face-smashing tone that old school death metal is known for. It just sounded like some 12 year old kid who just bought his new Line 6 Spyder and has no idea what all the shiny buttons do. The music itself was pretty underwhelming, too. Although there are some sweet riffs on Undead, 90% of them just sound boring. To credit Kevin Talley though, the drumming on Undead is great, cause its Kevin motherfucking Talley. To top all of that off, the once reigning king of Death Metal fizzles out with the worst guttural vocals and screams I’ve heard in a long time. Barnes sounds like a 7 year old imitating his favorite movie villain. One thing about Barnes’ vocals that did entertain me were his higher register screams. They’re fucking hilarious. I seriously burst out laughing while listening to some of the tracks.

Bomb Ass-Tracks

None. Absolutely none.

Overall Score

1.0

This was less of a review and more of a warning. I can’t tell you not to listen to it as you should always try to expose yourself to as much music as possible, but I can’t actually recommend Undead to anyone.

That’s all for now, folks. Keep being Awesome.