The long awaited new album from Tampa Bay's Six Feet Under released DEATH RITUALS last week. Opening the album with a maelstrom of solid head nodding riffs and rhythmic slashing ‘Death by Machete’ brings to us the pent up energy of a band at the top of the Tree. Using vocals that power through your torso to induce trance inducing blood flow to the brain we are then subjected to ‘Involuntary Movement of Dead Flesh’ with its jerky intro before slipping into barking vocals timed to match your body jerks, Chris Barnes on vocals then imitates the death sighs and gurgles of the last moments.

With track three we move away from death rattles and pick up the mood with ‘None Will escape’ where Chris introduces us to his evil alter ego and we get a belting little solo to spice it all up with. With ‘Eulogy Of The Dead’ we get short repetitive riff’s repeated in short statements backed by speed pedal bass and dramatic flourishes reminiscent of early Sabbath. The album has thirteen tracks on and is an unfettered celebration of all that Six Feet Under have been doing all these years, good even tempo barking pulses that allows fans to do some deep head nodding with injection of speed either through guitar solo’s or some speed bass pedal.

In track five the band are at their best with ‘Seed Of Filth’ with pumping skins giving life with the throbbing bass and ably supported by riffery that breaks out into lead solo’s while Chris continues with his measured trance barking. In track six the song ‘Bastard’ introduces itself with a great guitar riff while the melodic ‘Bastard’ with its supporting chant is something that you could enjoy getting into and is probably the most party friendly song on the album.

Track seven 'Into the Crematorium' takes us through an unpleasant surrounding and is a bit flat and cold with nothing to lift the song above average while little old tune ‘Shot In The Head’ opens with a voice over intro of a serial killer making promises before Six Feet Under dramatise in music what it’s all about, the song has a nice foot tapping moment that also gets lifted by a nicely built guitar solo.

Doom laden intro aka War Pigs style into the ninth song ‘Killed In Your Sleep’ brings even more insight into the dark minds of Six Feet Under with crazy sheep like bleats slipping in as the victim slowly drops of, we then get the tension building with suggestive bludgeon riffery, but I actually don’t think anyone die’s!, as the song seem to finish at the suggestive stage.. ahh what nice guys Six Feet Under are. I am not going to tell you about the last four songs, except to say that they are all different and one of them could be the best track on the album.

Chris Barnes - Vocals
Terry Butler - Bass
Greg Gall - Drums
Steve Swanson - Guitars

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