Album Review: Six Feet Under - Next To Die
Reviewed by Eric Clifford
Six Feet Under have a, shall we say, contentious reputation. Recent years haven’t seen them at their best; they’ve got their fans but there’s a reason Metal Blade Records turned the comments off on the singles from their last few albums on YouTube.
For me there are two primary problems with Six Feet Under’s output:
1. Barnes inarguable decline as a vocalist
2. A lot of their previous songs are just boring. Rudimentary riffs built with the most obvious note progressions possible, more often than not played at this stultifying mid-paced slog. Whole albums bogged down in molasses of trudging filler.
It’s frustrating, because there are moments within Six Feet Under’s career demonstrating better things that could’ve been. “Haunted” is basic but heavy and broods with sullen menace, “Maximum Violence” has some vile, gritty cuts like “Bonesaw”, “Undead” boasts some livelier, more technically astute riffwork and “Unborn” – especially on it’s front half – is disgustingly malevolent at points like opener “Neuro Osmosis”. While none of those albums are close to perfect, they’re all leagues more inspired than “Next to Die” – and given the calibre of talent at their disposal, it really does feel reasonable to wish the band would do something more interesting.
Let's start with the good. I’ve read that Barnes has given up smoking – if so, it’s paid dividends because he sounds better here than he has in years, eclipsing the almost unlistenable performance turned in on “Nightmares of the Decomposed”. It’s no “Tomb of the Mutilated” 2.0, or even really on par with the lows attained on, say, “True Carnage”, but he is at least serviceable now, provided he stays within a somewhat cramped range that frays the further he strays from it. And I’m glad about that – the man has had an awful lot of flack regarding his vocals over the years, so hearing him make steps back towards the beast of former repute that carved such a mark into death metal on those early ‘Corpse classics is welcome to an almost absurd degree.
Additionally, Six Feet Under have had some great production jobs in the past – “Commandment” is a rather mediocre album on the whole, but Erik Rutan’s production does at least make repeatedly checking your watch sound crushing, and “Bringer of Blood” sounds immense despite otherwise falling flat. I like the production on “Next to Die” as well – there’s a bullseye between gravelly abrasion and clean legibility, and Six Feet Under land a dart right there, with a burly guitar tone skinned in sandpaper, audible bass warm and arterial below it, and drums popping to the surface like ingrown hairs finally bursting through the skin. While I felt their last album (“Killing for Revenge”) pushed Barnes a bit further back in the mix for unfortunately obvious reasons, he’s more prominent now – befitting of a legend even if this isn’t his finest hour.
But if Barnes is a bit better now, that still leaves the other main malady that besmirches Six Feet Under: their songwriting. There’s not been great strides made. Songs stroll past with leisurely passages of alternate picking at pedestrian tempos, every note and chord progression timeworn in its predictability. All of these men have contributed orders of magnitude more to metal than I have so maybe I’m not best placed to judge, but between the sauntering pace, the simple, conventional riffs, and the unadventurous nature of everything about the album, there felt to be a palpable absence of passion here that became a bit hurtful after a while. Repetition is a serious issue, “Mutilated Corpse in the Woods” being dominated by essentially one drum beat for the entire song (fills and a brief slowdown in the middle aside) and a clutch of brief, humdrum riffs that don’t lack for similarity either. So many songs have individually enjoyable moments but struggle to figure out what to do with them; “Approach your Grave” has two solos herein, the second of which I really liked – but that can’t save a song otherwise built of lithified, lifeless beats and riffs so locked to the 1 and 3 of the 4 count that it’s hard to even call them a groove. If ever a song becomes too interesting, it is brought back to earth and asked to calm down. So it is that “Destroyed Remains” can open with a feisty terrier of a riff with an interestingly necrotic harmonised section, only to then mob it with more lethargic, moseying riffs at half the speed.
It’s a damning form of credit, but the album isn’t generally bad enough to raise passions – up until “Ill Wishes” tries to go all spooky on you with these awkward whisper-growls over echoing acoustic guitar. It really does sound very silly, and while I’m not averse to bands experimenting with their sound, Six Feet Under have tried incorporating vocal styles beyond death growls before with typically unfortunate results (marble-mouthed warbling on “4:20” from the “Warpath” album and a horrific Ice-T feature on a total car crash of a song called “One Bullet Left” from “True Carnage”).
The problem seems to come down to the fact that there’s a need for a spark here; some energy and inspiration to shift this thing out of first gear. These aren’t young guys any more, fine, but Karl Sanders is in his 60s and that last Nile album killed. Cryptopsy’s last was phenomenal too, and Immolation just released “Descent” – surprise, surprise, it rules. Plenty of bands are writing amazing death metal and worrying about their pension at the same time. Six Feet Under on the other hand have always struggled with this dogged lack of impetus that characterises so much of their back catalogue. It’s not that I can’t imagine anyone liking it – apparently they’re the 4th best selling death metal act in the U.S so clearly a fanbase exists - but I personally struggle to see the appeal when, in a tracklist of average-at-absolute-best and narcoleptic at worst material, they still manage to find room for filler in the form of “Skin Coffins” – a compendium of all the most played out, simplistic, tired groove riffs you could ever think of.
There’s a certain lack of inertia that plagues even the best of Six Feet Under’s work; “Undead” notably runs out of steam at the back end for one example. But this album, even if I’d take it over their last two, feels as though it exemplifies that inertia. It feels tired. It feels downtrodden. It’s highlights – a spunky riff here, nifty solo there, a brief fun drum fill – are fleeting and typically can’t make up for the demerits accumulating elsewhere on the songs. Scanning back through the album, the closest I come to a sort of appreciation is probably on “Wrath and Terror Takes Command”, which flows from a morbid doom intro through a number of snaking rhythmic chicanes. It’s still too reliant on stock standard chugging riffs that always go exactly where you expect them to, but I’ll take what I can get on an album that otherwise did very little for me. Still, there is an upward trajectory of a sort going on here; we’re much improved over the dark days of Nightmares of the Decomposed after all. Hopefully Barnes continues to improve, and maybe – just maybe – the band could write some of the true barnburners that are clearly within their collective talents. Until then, I’m sorry guys. I love your legacies. But this isn’t for me.
