Six Feet Under’s newest fails in creating intriguing consistency

“Torment” is the newest album from the death metal supergroup Six Feet Under. Their vocalist Chris Barnes wanted to make a death metal band that was more than just blast beats, so let’s see if they succeed with their newest album.

The album starts off pretty strong with the track “Sacrificial Kill,” which filled with headbanging goodness. It like all of the tracks on the album has a very prominent bass line with the bass sometime following the guitar leads. Chris Barnes vocals are some of the most unique in the extreme metal scene because of his raspy, dying, old man voice. You can hear the torment in his voice, which adds to heaviness.

However, most of the tracks feel more like a nu metal with heavy death metal influence. This makes a lot of the songs feel lazy and repetitive.

It is not all bad; the track “Skeleton” starts with a snare drum run that hypes you up. The bass then locks in with the groove, and it gets better from then on. It has a very good progression that gets heavier and heavier the more time passes. The guitars then go into a heavy groove that turns into a typical evil death metal riff. It then starts to get thrashy with some Metallica and Slayer vibes coming from the riff. The track repeats this process for a bit until it goes back to the snare drum run from the start.

The last track that I think is even worth mentioning is “Slaughtered as They Slept,” which is probably the slowest track on the album and has very doom metal sound. It has an exotic sound in the start because of the use of the harmonic minor scale, which can give a Middle Eastern sound if used in the right way. Things start to pick up pace with the song starting to feel like a thrash metal song. It still has a grooviness to it even with the faster tempo. After this thrash section, it turns back to a doom feel and back to the thrash attack at the end.

These tracks are the only ones that don’t follow the boring checklist that permeate throughout this album. Most of the tracks start off pretty well, but that normally ends quickly with a rhythmically boring breakdown that takes up the majority of the track.

The production quality is OK at best, with the guitars sounding a little thin and having no personality. The main thing I feel from this album is wasted potential. All the people in this band are extremely talented and can make something incredible. The bassist of the band, Jeff Hughell, recorded all the guitar and bass tracks, and he also plays with seven string basses. This fact just disappoints me so much because these artists can compose something more than a boring breakdown with a side of lazy nu metal riff.

For this reason, I give the album a six out of 10 because of the boringness of most of the tracks. However, some of the tracks are amazing and unique, but there are so few that I would not buy this album unless you are big fan.

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