Six Feet Under - True Carnage
Metal Blade - 2001
By Rodrigo
/images/covers/SixFeetUnder.jpg
It was only a matter of time when I would finally hear an album with Chris Barnes. The albums he did with Cannibal Corpse always interested me but I have never gotten around to obtaining those albums. I was aware of his new band Six Feet Under but until this new release I also put them on the "To Buy" list.
Well my first impression of True Carnage was mild amusement. The constant lyrical themes on murdering, killing, and fascination with corpses while at first were interesting and definitely different got pretty boring kind of fast. There are only so many ways to write about the same thing without sounding repetitive. The second aspect I noticed about the album was the weird production. The mix focuses too much on Chriss vocals making the music at times hard to hear, in fact the bass is basically inaudible. Plus, the guitar leads/solos are incredibly hard to hear and if they were only made more audible it would had made everything so much better. When you can hear the music, it is basically pretty simple and straightforward and the band mostly stays in a slow tempo, which is a shame because the times they speed it up it is highly enjoyable.
There are positives to talk about the album and one of them would be the song "One Bullet Left". The rapper Ice-T guest sings on this song and it is quite refreshing to hear someone other than Chris sing. This song packs speed, power, aggressiveness and originality. The first thirty seconds are great with the riffing guitars and pounding drums setting up the mood and then how it speeds up afterwards is excellent. To simply put it, "One Bullet Left" is the best song on the album. There is another guest vocalist and that is Karyn Crisis who appears on "Sick and Twisted". Once again, hearing another voice is the draw of this song. Her voice is plain evil, especially when she screams. The only drawback of the song is the slower parts when Chris takes the lead. Now just because I find the guest vocalists refreshing and a nice change of pace to Chriss singing doesnt mean I dont enjoy hearing Chris. In the songs "Impulse to Disembowel" and "The Murderers" I really like how he sings especially when he does that freaky high-pitch scream. Both of these songs are two of the best, especially "Impulse to Disembowel" and the slithering guitar parts during the verses. "It Never Dies" and "The Day the Dead Walked" are two other great songs. Both are played fast and this should be the pace that Six Feet Under should be playing at all the time. A cool aspect of the album is that it includes a video for "The Day the Dead Walked".
Too bad that the rest of the songs dont really add anything else to the album. They really get repetitive or they are just plain lame and pointless like "Snakes" and "Cadaver Mutilator". While at times the album is great, the production problems and the similarities of lyrics and music just leave a sour taste in my mouth. I havent given up on Chris Barnes, I will check out the Cannibal Corpse albums he was in but True Carnage has really prevented me from wanting to hear the other Six Feet Under albums.
Metal Blade - 2001
By Rodrigo
/images/covers/SixFeetUnder.jpg
It was only a matter of time when I would finally hear an album with Chris Barnes. The albums he did with Cannibal Corpse always interested me but I have never gotten around to obtaining those albums. I was aware of his new band Six Feet Under but until this new release I also put them on the "To Buy" list.
Well my first impression of True Carnage was mild amusement. The constant lyrical themes on murdering, killing, and fascination with corpses while at first were interesting and definitely different got pretty boring kind of fast. There are only so many ways to write about the same thing without sounding repetitive. The second aspect I noticed about the album was the weird production. The mix focuses too much on Chriss vocals making the music at times hard to hear, in fact the bass is basically inaudible. Plus, the guitar leads/solos are incredibly hard to hear and if they were only made more audible it would had made everything so much better. When you can hear the music, it is basically pretty simple and straightforward and the band mostly stays in a slow tempo, which is a shame because the times they speed it up it is highly enjoyable.
There are positives to talk about the album and one of them would be the song "One Bullet Left". The rapper Ice-T guest sings on this song and it is quite refreshing to hear someone other than Chris sing. This song packs speed, power, aggressiveness and originality. The first thirty seconds are great with the riffing guitars and pounding drums setting up the mood and then how it speeds up afterwards is excellent. To simply put it, "One Bullet Left" is the best song on the album. There is another guest vocalist and that is Karyn Crisis who appears on "Sick and Twisted". Once again, hearing another voice is the draw of this song. Her voice is plain evil, especially when she screams. The only drawback of the song is the slower parts when Chris takes the lead. Now just because I find the guest vocalists refreshing and a nice change of pace to Chriss singing doesnt mean I dont enjoy hearing Chris. In the songs "Impulse to Disembowel" and "The Murderers" I really like how he sings especially when he does that freaky high-pitch scream. Both of these songs are two of the best, especially "Impulse to Disembowel" and the slithering guitar parts during the verses. "It Never Dies" and "The Day the Dead Walked" are two other great songs. Both are played fast and this should be the pace that Six Feet Under should be playing at all the time. A cool aspect of the album is that it includes a video for "The Day the Dead Walked".
Too bad that the rest of the songs dont really add anything else to the album. They really get repetitive or they are just plain lame and pointless like "Snakes" and "Cadaver Mutilator". While at times the album is great, the production problems and the similarities of lyrics and music just leave a sour taste in my mouth. I havent given up on Chris Barnes, I will check out the Cannibal Corpse albums he was in but True Carnage has really prevented me from wanting to hear the other Six Feet Under albums.
