Six Feet Under - Unborn
It seemed like Six Feet Under really turned over a new pot leaf with 2012’s Undead — their best album since 1995 debut Haunted. That said, the comeback effort did wane slightly during its second half, and now another new full-length perhaps a bit too soon in its wake. Normally I’d say it all comes down to the vocals of Chris Barnes. Usually Six Feet Under records are only as good as he sounds. Their mid-tempo, groove-oriented brand of Death Metal is essentially always the same template of simple-but-effective riffage and drumming, so it’s up to Barnes to get those goat heads raised, right? Oddly enough, that isn’t the case on Unborn. Other than a couple wobbly moments on lead single “Prophecy,” Barnes is in consistently awesome form throughout. Forget about mid-career laugher Bringer of Blood. His performance here is more mid-Cannibal Corpse-career! In fact, his tone on the likes of “Zombie Blood Curse,” “Decapitate,” “Incision,” “The Sinister Craving,” and melodic intro/track “Neuro Osmosis” might be the deepest and darkest he’s ever achieved. The problem with Unborn is the lack of the catchy riff — the department Steve Swanson almost always excels in. That isn’t to say the music isn’t headbangably enjoyable throughout, but even some of the most standout riffcraft on display here —the vibrant mosh rhythms of “Fragment” and the fast-for-6FU shredding of “Alive to Kill You”— isn’t necessarily transitioned well. More than not, the phrase “going through the motions” springs to mind. I have to wonder if bassist Jeff Hughell going from the technically dazzling likes of Brain Drill and Rings of Saturn to Six Feet Under hasn’t taken some toll on his vigor. That’d be like Flo Mounier drumming for Pink Floyd. (On that note, Kevin Talley probably isn’t fully utilizing his wide range of capabilities as the sticksman for Death Metal’s answer to AC/DC, either.) It could be the band just needed more time between releases. Or perhaps I did. Either way, Unborn’s reign in my stereo is more than likely going to be brief. Despite a totally refocused Chris Barnes and more uniformly substantial —albeit arguably phoned-in— material than its predecessor, it sorely lacks Undead’s “hits.”
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