The name Morta Skuld may ring familiar to the seasoned extreme metal fan. You know the type. The nameless ghouls on the edge of the pit armed with their grimy battle jackets and salty disposition at Summer Slaughter every year. For the denim-less, know that Morta Skuld were one of the dozens of death metal bands lost in the mid-90s shuffle, but reanimated in 2012. Oh, and Wounds Deeper Than Time (Peaceville) is their first proper LP since 1997.Continue reading
Six Feet Under will be unleashing Torment on February 24th via Metal Blade, and the third bruising single has made its way online. Continue reading
Six Feet Under will be unleashing their twelfth studio album, Torment, on February 24th via Metal Blade, and another new song has made its way online. Continue reading
Six Feet Under will be unleashing their twelfth studio album, Torment, on February 24th via Metal Blade, and it’s going to be something special. Continue reading
Long-running death metallers Six Feet Under have spent most of 2016 preparing a new release, as yet untitled and due out via Metal Blade Records this spring. Frontman Chris Barnes has shared a few teases of some new tracks via his Instagram account. You can hear them below: Continue reading
Progressive Metallers Carciature have released the first music video from their brand new EP Unborn, released on December 9th. You can watch the video for ‘Man Of Science’ below:Continue reading
Progressive metal band Caricature are back with yet another release, this time the surprising Unborn EP. It’s tough to qualify anything surprising from this outfit and its leader Joseph Spiller, since their last release Stampede was a one track EP that was a 27 minute long song about Spiller’s cat, Parmesan. That track is epic in length and also musically, and so it begs the question: where do you go from there? Well obviously if you are Caricature you go right back to work write some of the best songs in your career.Continue reading
Coathanger Abortion, really? That’s a song title Cannibal Corpse would reject for being too stupid, but the five members of said outfit evidently felt it was just the kind of moniker to gain precious brutal scene points. Now if this was just a few kids eager to offend it would be understandable but these chumps have been around for fifteen years! What’s even more shocking is in that time they appear to have barely mastered their instruments, let alone learnt how to pen a half-decent death metal song, for sophomore release Observations of Humanity (Comatose) is one of the worst albums ever recorded.
Inexpertly combining the aggression and violent approach of Cannibal Corpse with the technicality and chunky riffs of Suffocation, yet with absolutely none of the ingenuity, skill and flair those two acts have exhibited for so long, Coathanger Abortion drag the listener through a tortuous fifty-three minute riff-salad of stolen ideas and clumsy execution that’ll have you wondering how something so utterly horrendous could ever be released by a label that wants to be taken seriously. The clear production only serves to highlight how inept proceedings are, with every out-of-time chord-change, sloppy piece of drumming or out of tune bass note standing out like naughty schoolchildren. Most contempt however is reserved for the appalling guttural vocals that sound like a parody of the Cookie Monster.
Many album reviews include hyperbolic statements along the lines of; “this record will give you bruises!” Observations of Humanity is no exception; however the bruises will be on your visage as a result of repeated facepalms, or from pulling a muscle as you frantically reach for the stop button. This is a record that makes the latest offering from Six Feet Under appear an enticing and cerebral prospect.
Hands down, the worst album to be released this year.
2.0/10
Coathanger Abortion on Facebook
JAMES CONWAY
Six Feet Under is streaming their newly released via Metal Blade full length Crypt Of The Devil in its entirety here.
Six Feet Under on Twitter
Six Feet Under on Facebook
In the twenty years since Chris Barnes first brought his Six Feet Under project to zombiefied life with the cult classic Haunted (all 6FU releases are Metal Blade) he has seen opinion of his outfit swing from much anticipated to laughing stock with the release of their Graveyard Classics series (particularly Part 2) before clawing back credibility with some decent, if unspectacular Death Metal fare, culminating in the stronger Unborn in 2013.
Since then, though, in true Six Feet Under style, line ups have altered nearly as often as Mr. Barnes has skinned up (well, probably not…), and considering his views on hailing the leaf, it is perhaps not unsurprising that his backing band for studio album number eleven (!) Crypt Of The Devil is comprised of Cannabis Corpse, with guitarist Phil Hall working closely with Barnes on the compositions, and the rest of the band laying down the rhythm tracks.
However, any thoughts that (another) new line up and writing team would be injecting anti-coagulants into the bloodstream of the lumbering cadaver that is 6FU and producing a thinner, quicker, revitalized sanguinity are churlish as it is rather the case of meet the new blood, same as the old blood, as Crypt Of The Devil churns out more serial killer rhetoric over chugging churning Death Metal.
What you get is a set of very listenable, very competent and very safe Death Metal tracks. You’ll nod along, there will be bits that will snap, and some that will bite, but in the main this is a very unobtrusive and, with the exception of ‘Broken Bottle Rape’ (are we really doing this still? Fuck sake, man), inoffensive album. ‘Open Coffin Orgy’, in particular, is catchy and ‘Gruesome’ kicks things off with twisted intent, but beyond that, the rest of the album is comprised of stock chugging and predictable tracks that merge together.
It may come as very little surprise to learn that, while nothing is particularly wrong with Crypt of the Devil, it won’t change your life, nor demand your attention enough to justify picking it up.
6.0/10
STEVE TOVEY