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SIX FEET UNDER
Killing For Revenge

Metal Blade (2024)
Rating: 4/10

Six Feet Under just cannot catch a break and over the span of their career they have become somewhat the Nickelback of the death metal genre. Every time the guys release an album I almost feel sorry for them because there always seems to be a monumental backlash awaiting them. Some of the criticism was certainly justifiable when the Tampa, Florida-based band churned out their last outing, the 2020 abomination Nightmares Of The Decomposed.

It would seem that chief growler Chris Barnes, formerly of Cannibal Corpse as we all know, learned his lesson from last time and returns to those formulaic grunts n’ growls, while behind him guitarists Jack Owen and Ray Suhy put in a decent shift alongside drumming warlock Marco Pitruzzella and bassist Jeff Hughell. Sadly, it’s still pretty standard stuff, even more so when you hear some of the quality stuff regularly emerging from the pits of the genre.

At their boggiest the clan traipse, rather painfully, through ‘Neanderthal’ and the equally laborious ‘Hostility Against Mankind’. Barnes is a law unto himself throughout, and not in a good way as he eventually puffs and wheezes to the final quarter. It’s a strange performance again from the veteran, and more noticeable due to his more energetic run on the first batch of thrashier numbers, but as with so many Six Feet Under albums, the goofy vocals and dreadful lyrics are everywhere. Match these details with another extraordinarily bad album cover and you are not left with much else to hold on to. Okay, so ‘Spoils Of War’ features a decent groove bolstered further by the slick bass, and the blandly titled ‘Judgement Day’ boasts some good riffs, but the fact that the fun cover of Nazareth’s ‘Hair Of The Dog’ is probably the best cut says it all.

After several listens to Killing For Revenge I’ve tried my hardest to extract as many positives as possible, but they are all too intermittent. Sure, I’m glad Jack Owens stuck around (I’m not sure he is!) and as stated the beginning of the album is okay, but the fact that Barnes can’t seem to keep up as the album unravels suggests it was all done in one despairing take. ‘Fit For Carnage’ is boisterous enough, as is opener ‘Know-Nothing Ingrate’, but the lyrics, well, they aren’t even high school quality. Again, this is meat n’ potatoes cookie-cutter death metal that I struggle to sympathise with let alone enjoy, and I’m sure most will agree with such sentiments.

Neil Arnold

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