13, unlucky for some? Oh yes
Six Feet Under – 13
This is dark, heavy and full of grunt. Kicking off with 'Decomposition of the Human Race' it features thick chugging guitars with vocals reminiscent of a zombie that's swallowed the contents of an ashtray!
The music (such as it is) isn't bad, it's standard death metal really with busy guitars and a driving rhythm but there is little on offer besides that. Occasionally interspersed with a hundred mile an hour guitar solo there's no let up and no getting past the vocals, which it has to be said become incredibly irritating after the first couple of minutes. Track three for instance is quite promising, the guitars are slightly (and I mean slightly!) more tuneful but the whole thing is held back by the dismal illegible grunting of ex 'Cannibal Corpse' vocalist Chris Barnes.
This is Six Feet Under's eighth album in ten years, if you're a fan you'll no doubt dig '13' as it's more of the same. The fact is though that there is no real inventiveness on this album, it's just relentless chugging death metal that's been heard many times before, not least by the previous seven Six Feet Under albums.
'Shadow of the Reaper' is perhaps the best tune on offer but guess what? Yup, it's destroyed by yet more tuneless gravel vocals. Barnes is very proud of the fact that he's in touch with his fans and the people that like this style of music, admirable sentiments but failure to look beyond that limits the appeal of the band and means that they haven't moved on. Sure the music is competently played but there's no variety, all the guitar solos sound very similar (as do many of the tunes) and at times are just thrown into a song with no logical reason for them being there.
If you like your metal hard, heavy, messy and mean you might find something here but you'll also be aware that there are much better exponents of it than Six Feet Under.