SIX FEET UNDER - Decade In The Grave

Six Feet Under
Decade In The Grave
Metal Blade Records
8/10





Six Feet Under buries the competition with “Decade In The Grave”, a fully comprehensive collection that proves why this Chris Barnes-led outfit is the most important band in the entire death metal genre today. When consumed in such substantial quantities, the band’s hauntingly grinding sonic violence becomes all the more lethal. Singer Barnes is well known for intending to create the kind of music that will “…rip people’s fucking heads off” and with “Decade In The Grave”, the brash and wholly intense frontman has achieved the fullest realization of his creative ambitions to date. A raging battlefield of death awaits the listener with this enormous offering, as SFU stack the corpses to the sky with no less than four discs packed with over seventy of the band’s best works, rare tracks and a seventeen cut DVD that will bring grave-digging devotees of the group through the band’s entire blood-soaked career of brutalizing graveyard metal.

Six Feet Under often comes across as being very harsh. But it is that harshness that often makes the band’s songs appealing. Less production is more for SFU and that makes the demo tracks, early recordings and rare cuts all the more enticing to hear. Although many compilations of this sort are more geared toward diehard fans of a group, this decade of death stuffed into a box becomes the perfect medium to discover the group for the first time as well. This set runs the gamut of diversity, showcasing each of the varied aspects of the group’s sound from the punk metal stomping of “Revenge Of The Zombie”, to the blunt force trauma attack of “Victim Of The Paranoid.” When the doomy, Sabbath influenced darkness of “Feasting On The Blood Of The Insane” begins to deeply set in, you’ll know exactly why 1999’s “Maximum Violence” record is one of the most revered death metal albums of all time and by the time the cut’s bludgeoning verse kicks in, you’ll be overtaken by the bruising sonic demolition that only Six Feet Under can deliver. As this set rolls through two discs of the band’s album highlights, tracks like “Murder In The Basement”, “War Is Coming”, “Torture Killer” and “The Day The Dead Walked” are prime examples as to why Six Feet Under has remained the most noteworthy act of this type for the past ten years.

More recent material is represented well, with standouts from the group’s 2005 “13” record bearing a major presence. Fan favorite “Shadow Of The Reaper”, that albums, nastily grinding “Decomposition Of The Human Race” and the thrashy, markedly grim sounding “Deathklaat” each underline the band’s dominant, skull-blasting venom. A full fledged death-tank of an album, “13” shows the band to be in their prime, but for those who haven’t picked it up as of yet, the best material is to be found in this collection. The inclusion of Barnes’ pair of Leviathan demos shows that he is an artist which deeply desires to express himself with varied forms of metal and these legendary metal hallmarks are almost the icing on the cake. With more than enough audio to satisfy any follower of these Godfathers of death metal, the inclusion of a comprehensive DVD makes this set mandatory. Chris Barnes is truly a luminary in the creation of this style of music and this excellent package confirms the storied underground vocalist’s band as being the preeminent force in all of death metal. Prepare to be buried alive.


ERIN FOX © 2005 - ALL RIGHTS RESERVED