I’ve been a Pokémon fan for more than 25 years. I’ve followed the main game series across six different platforms, watching as its original Red and Blue versions gave way to Gold and Silver and eventually, uh… Sword and Shield… as the monster roster ballooned to more than 1,000 unique creatures. (Catch ‘em all, I regrettably never have.) The games have all started to feel a bit samey, but there’s just something there that keeps me coming back.
This, I realize, is a bit of a strange way to intro a piece that is, ostensibly, about Six Feet Under and their new album, Killing for Revenge, but… it’ll make sense shortly, I promise.
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Ask a Pokémon player who their favorite creature is, and you’ll get a myriad of different responses: from the fire dragon, Charizard, to the electric lion, Luxray and everywhere in between. (Since you didn’t ask, mine happens to be Ninetales.) But while there’s a wide range of acceptable “favorite” Pokémon, the “least favorite” list almost always includes one common denominator:
That, friends, is a Magikarp. The pushover’s pushover. The creature for whom “useless” is a wholly inadequate adjective — not to mention an insult to most other useless things. The bane of existence to Pokémon players everywhere. Shit, just look at how the game’s own encyclopedia describes this thing:
It is said to be the world’s weakest Pokémon. No one knows why it has managed to survive.
Pokémon Diamond, 2006
Not how it has managed to survive; fucking WHY it’s done so. That is, just… savage.
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Anyway, I bring up Magikarp because Six Feet Under’s always kind of reminded me of one. Just look at the similarities:
For as long as they’ve existed, Six Feet Under has carried on more or less like a Magikarp. As the world around them has evolved, Chris Barnes & Co. have simply been treading water in a perpetual 1993. The riffs sound more and more recycled, the lyrics more and more nonsensical, and Barnes’ delivery of them more and more decayed. (To keep the Pokéanalogy going, he sounds kinda like a Weezing at this point.)
Still, even a Magikarp can give its trainer something to hope for. You might set course for level 15, where it’ll learn Tackle, a move that actually causes damage. You might be looking past that to level 20, when it evolves into Gyarados. Even if you’re stuck with a Magikarp, there is always a light at the end of the tunnel.
You might also catch glimmers of hope with Six Feet Under. The 1-2 punch of Undead and Unborn from… shit… a dozen years ago, represented two genuinely decent and listenable releases. (Hooray! They learned Tackle!) Could there be further riches to come on Killing for Revenge? Could they evolve into… a more reliable death metal band?
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Well… not quite. Not yet, anyway. Killing for Revenge isn’t a very good album, but it does have its moments, and it takes the band a few baby steps forward toward listenability.
Starting with what works, how about album opener and lead single, “Know-Nothing Ingrate”? This thing… kinda rips? Drummer Marco Pitruzzella bludgeons you systematically from all sides as guitarists Ray Suhy and Jack Owen spit pure hellfire. Lyrically, Barnes comes off a bit like someone’s angry dad — Anger me with the people that you imitate / you will always be a know-nothing ingrate — but also… if you’ve ever really cared about the lyrics in a Six Feet Under song, you’re doing it wrong. All told, in less than two-and-a-half minutes, the band’s come in, force fed you a bit of broken glass, and gotten out. Not too shabby.
Suhy and Owen — the latter, of course, Barnes’ former bandmate in Cannibal Corpse — account for the majority of the highlights on Killing for Revenge. The slithering riff that opens “When the Moon Goes Down in Blood” is a real attention grabber, and the rest of the song does pretty well to hold your attention afterward. Their interplay with Pitruzzella on “Accomplice to Evil Deeds” also creates a decent groove that overcomes the song’s otherwise slightly lumbering nature. (Suhy’s solo also hits like a dose of ricin. In a good way!)
At times, things start to blend together — a sea of tachycardic tempos and meaty riffs. Pace-changers like “Hostility Against Mankind” and “Neanderthal” become a near necessity, but unfortunately, neither one does enough to really justify its inclusion. (They also come off positively dirge-like given the relative velocity of the rest of the album.)
And then, there’s Barnes. I’m not gonna go too deep here, because… you’ve already heard the most popular jabs a million times from a million other blogs. But… the guy sounds like he’s struggling — even by death metal standards — and as a result, he can be a struggle to listen to. Do you remember the rapper DMX? “Party Up”? “X Gon’ Give It To Ya?” D’you remember his delivery? How he used to sound like he was harmonizing himself? That’s kind of what it feels like Barnes is doing, at times. A composite sketch of three or four separate vocal takes, layered over one another. It’s… a lot. I don’t care about any of his history, or his side stuff, or any of that. I just really struggle with these vocals. They impose a ceiling of “just okay” on songs that might otherwise be “actually kinda good.”
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Killing for Revenge isn’t a good album, but it’s not a truly bad one, either. It’s kind of just… there — a largely forgettable affair. We’re still not yet at the point where I’d seek out Six Feet Under over any of their contemporaries for a casual listening session. But hey… string a few more “Know-Nothing Ingrate”-level jams together next time out, and we might well have a Gyarados on our hands. Until then…
Keep it heavy,
— Dan
Killing for Revenge will be available May 10 via Metal Blade Records. For more information on Six Feet Under, visit the band’s Facebook page.
Nine Circles 