Sewers

Six Feet Under is something fairly close to the ICP of the metal world: they aren't particularly mainstream, but they are utterly pedestrian, extremely puerile and obnoxious lyrically, and they have large amounts of stupid fans (though admittedly nowhere near as many as ICP does). Now why, one may ask, would a band choose to pattern themselves after SFU? Answer: Some people are just that fucking stupid. Nevertheless, they've evidently been able to go places just by aping SFU, as their increasing popularity would suggest. Hell, they even got Chris Barnes to do vox on their second album; not like that's anything to be proud of, however, given how far Barnes is from his heyday. Needless to say, though, they lost him, and now they lost their only claim to fame.

Now that I actually have to review this fucker, let me just say this: it's really fucking generic. It's entirely mid-paced material that relies on groove, and lots of it; too bad that said grooves are snore-inducing at best. The drumming is pretty much the same the whole way through, with nothing in the way of variation, and while it is played competently, it's just so unidimensional that it really doesn't matter. The guitars are, again, competently played, but with so much of it consisting of midtempo chugging, it begs one to ask, "What is the point?". Bass is, well... did you actually expect to hear it? Yeah, I didn't either, and my expectations were confirmed, as it is nowhere to be found. Finally, we've got the vocalist. At the very least, he doesn't sound like Barnes, which, when you consider SFU, is a very good thing. At the same time, though, the vocalist isn't terribly good either. I mean, yeah, he's not unbearable, but he's definitely nothing to write home about.

In the end, why give a shit? Yeah, I can understand, these guys love SFU and wanted to emulate them, but really, couldn't they have picked a less shitty band? They'll probably stick on with this and enjoy it anyways, so more power to them, I suppose. Nevertheless, this is one of the most pointless things I've ever heard. It's boring, insipid, brainless, and done with so little to catch the ear that it might as well just be muzak. After all, outside of the fact that it is death metal at its core, this shit has all the right marks for being played in an elevator. Oh well, as long as there are people who will buy it and enjoy it, I suppose we'll be hearing more from these guys.