Six Feet Under - "Commandment", 2007

2005's "13" put Six Feet Under back on the right track, and the boxset/best-of "A Decade in the Grave" was a well-packaged celebratory release to kill the time while waiting for the new record; it finally dropped in 2007, titled "Commandment".

The artwork, once more by Meran Karanitant, follows the skulls' theme that characterized many Six Feet Under covers; the subject is not exactly a novelty at this point, but it's done tastefully and the matching booklet design looks well-finished.

Once the album starts playing, one can immediately notice the vastly improved production values; engineered and mixed by Erik Rutan at Mana Recording, the record definitely stands out as one of the best sounding within the band's discography, from the thick, crushing guitar tone to the hard-hitting drums. The latter were probably enhanced with a sample on the snare, slightly mixed together with the original sound to give it more punch; unlike many of today's productions, it's done tastefully and it doesn't sound artificial at all, actually giving Greg Gall the best drum-sound of his whole tenure with the band (although 2008's "Death Rituals" one is a close second). Barnes' growls, recorded at Criteria as usual, sound imposing and possess a particularly rotten quality to them that makes the singer stand out as an immediately recognizable presence, even though he sounds a little strained at times, especially on side B of the record, for some reason.

The band has always got a talent for choosing great openers for its records, and "Doomsday" is no exception; starting off as a typical double-kick laden Six Feet Under number, it perfectly follows the winning formula of the band, including a heavier-than-thou, chugging breakdown in the middle as well as a doomy refrain that sounds genuinely apocalyptic.

"Commandment" sees the band sticking to its guns, even moving the clock back to the first three records stylistically, as evidenced by tracks such as the mid-tempo banger "Thou Shall Kill", the faster "Zombie Executioner" or D-beat infused "In a Vacant Grave", that could all have fit on 1999's "Maximum Violence"; the already mentioned "Doomsday", the nearly identical "Bled to Death", "As the Blade Turns" or the two punkier, moshpit starters "The Edge of the Hatchet" and "Resurrection of the Rotten" would have made Allen West proud instead, resembling the material on the classics "Haunted" and "Warpath" like no other Swanson-era record. "The Evil Eye" and the album-closer "Ghosts of the Undead" (inexplicably chosen as one of the lead singles) are the kind of cookie-cutter material that Six Feet Under are sometimes guilty of churning out - despite a nice guitar lead on the latter - and can be filed under "fillers", although they're forgivable in the context of such a good, enjoyable record.

If the music looks back to the early efforts of the band, the lyrics also seem to follow suit; between gory homicides, dismemberments, zombies and witchery, it's like if Barnes went back into full-"Haunted" mode, focusing on the horror side of things and forgetting about any social commentary or urban-themed lyrics he indulged in on and off from the late 90s to the mid 2000s.

While certainly not trying to reinvent the wheel, "Commandment" is a honest, meat and potatoes old school death metal record sporting a caveman-style approach, relying mostly on heavy, slow-to-mid tempos plus the occasional D-beats and speed-ups. Fans of gravity blastbeats, swivel technique, complicated song structures and a thousand riffs per minute can go take a hike; the others can sit back and enjoy one of the best Six Feet Under albums of the Swanson-Butler-Gall line-up.

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