Six Feet Under - "Torment", 2017

After the one-off collaboration with the Cannabis Corpse members on the remarkable "Crypt of the Devil", Six Feet Under - at that point more of a studio project of singer Chris Barnes - hired bass player Jeff Hughell and drummer Marco Pitruzzella permanently; Hughell also was invested with the task of writing all the material for a new record, coming out in 2017 and going by the rather unimaginative title of "Torment".

Let's say it right away: "Torment" is not nearly as good as the three albums that preceded it, and Hughell's songwriting skills can't compare to the guys who wrote the material on "Undead", "Unborn", and "Crypt of the Devil"; he also plays the guitars here, and while he's an excellent bass player, he seems to be a tad sloppy on guitar at times, and he doesn't play any solos on the songs. Does this mean that the album is all bad? Not necessarily.

While the absence of guitar solos feels a bit strange and makes you wonder why Barnes didn't call Ray Suhy or some other friend to guest on the record, it's also true that Six Feet Under didn't always feature solos on its older tracks; they would have lifted the material a bit, though, and it feels like a missed opportunity. Hughell is competent enough as a rhythm guitar player, although his execution is slightly rough at times and his guitar tone isn't the best; he shines as a bass player, though, displaying some noteworthy technical skills that often come to the forefront through the songs. Likewise, Pitruzzella is a drummer known for his skills, gravity blast beats, and all those modern techniques, and he showcases some of them on the record; like many modern drummers of his ilk, his choices in terms of how the drums should sound are questionable, largely relying on samples/triggers to enhance the performance, given he doesn't come across as a hard-hitting drummer but more of a technical, new-school kind of player. While he's certainly talented and he does a rather impressive job here, especially on the faster material, it's just not my favorite drumming style and, in my opinion, can't compare to the likes of Kevin Talley or even Phil Hall, who both appeared on some of the previous records.

"Torment" features 12 songs, but at least two or three could have been trimmed off the tracklist, specifically the ones that try to resemble the older Six Feet Under material the most; the plodding "Knife Through the Skull", the more thrashy mid-tempo "Slaughtered as They Slept", or the generic throwaway "Funeral Mask" are all stuff that immediately qualifies as filler material. These types of songs are also where the production feels weaker, sounding a little thin and sterile. The groovy numbers "In the Process of Decomposing", "Obsidian", the funny-titled "Bloody Underwear", or the closer "Roots of Evil" are in a similar vein but instead sound more varied and convincing, encouraging some headbanging.

Where "Torment" works better is on the faster and more brutal songs. While the opener "Sacrificial Kill" starts off slow, with a riffing reminiscent of Cannibal Corpse circa 1994, it goes into hyper-speed mode halfway through, displaying the fastest blastbeats Six Feet Under ever dealt with; "The Separation of Flesh from Bone" follows a similar structure, and it manages to recreate a pretty morbid atmosphere during its doomy verses.

Stuff like "Exploratory Homicide" is even better, immediately starting off with a killer riff and following with a number of blasting goodness and psychotic melodies, qualifying it as one of the best tracks on the record. "Schizomaniac" is not too far behind, and "Skeleton", after a bizarre march-like intro, heads off into pure mayhem as well.

In general, Hughell tries to keep a good balance between the faster material, the doomy slowdowns, and the typical old-school Six Feet Under mid-tempos/groovy riffs; he doesn't always succeed, and the quality of the songs is uneven, but overall he did a decent job at carrying the whole songwriting responsibilities on his back and at handling both guitar and bass duties, as well as engineering them by himself.

Although this is quite subjective, I feel like this is the record where Chris Barnes started showing some more noticeable wear in his vocal delivery; he also seems to struggle a bit at keeping up with some vocal patterns here and there, but that's a problem he always had to some extent; it just got more evident in recent years. This said, while far from perfect, his voice still sounds recognizable, and it's got that tortured quality to it that makes it peculiar and disgusting (in a good way). It's not too different from "Crypt of the Devil", actually, while a bit less consistent. The lyrics still deliver some feral, blood and gore-soaked tales; the singer shows he didn't lose his edge, indulging in particularly nasty and gruesome details, especially on titles such as "Slaughtered as They Slept" or "Bloody Underwear".

The cover artwork by Indonesian artist Septian Devenum certainly doesn't do the record any justice; it looks like a computer job placed over a generic white background. The feeling is that if the same subject had been hand-drawn by a proper artist such as Vince Locke or Wes Benscoter, just to name two, it would have definitely fared better.

"Torment" can't compete with the three albums that preceded it, but it's still an enjoyable record with some excellent moments, especially when the band delves into faster and more brutal death metal territories. It's an album that probably would have benefited from having a proper artistic producer to refine the songwriting and the sound in general, to cut off some filler material, and to focus on its stronger assets. As it is, it's a fun but flawed record that might still appeal to the band's hardcore fanbase.