Six Feet Under - "True Carnage", 2001

After the questionable "Graveyard Classics" cover album, a release that couldn't be taken too seriously and that felt more like a light-hearted stopgap, Barnes and his gang were back in 2001 with a new record that definitely raised some eyebrows, for more than one reason. "True Carnage" sees the band entering the 2000s; it was a dark moment for metal music, especially in America, still largely dominated by the long wave of 90s' nu-metal, crossover, and rap-metal, while the mainstream audiences welcomed hip-hop with open arms. Many older metal bands tried to adapt and survive the younger competition of Slipknot & co. by getting heavier and groovier (for instance, Slayer with "God Hates Us All"), while others shamelessly embraced the new trends (think Machine Head's "Supercharger" or Soulfly's "Primitive"); among this maelstrom of dreadlocks, Adidas tracksuits, baseball caps, gangsta-looking dudes, and bouncy jumpdafucup rhythms, Six Feet Under managed to dip its toes in the troubled waters just enough to stay relevant while at the same time trying to avoid alienating its death metal fanbase. This resulted in an album that feels a bit like a mixed bag, although not lacking some good songs.

"Impulse to Disembowel" is a strong opener; while the first seconds of the song resort to the same trick as "Stripped, Raped and Strangled" (by Barnes' former band Cannibal Corpse), it soon evolves into a sludgy, pinch harmonics-laden affair that feels like a bulldozer slowly squashing everything standing in its path. Barnes' vocals are extremely brutal, and they're at their most guttural since the Cannibal Corpse days, while paired with some shrieking pig-squeals that will appear quite often during the rest of the songs and that went on to become a trademark of the singer; they're one of those things that you either love or hate, there can't be any middle ground and in fact a lot of people seem to have a problem with them. While I understand they can be annoying, especially since the vocals are pretty upfront in the mix, I think they fit the schizoid mood well, and they sound barely human, resembling more a feral beast instead.

The production is even more stripped-down than "Maximum Violence", especially the drums, sounding almost like a live in studio recording; the downtuned guitars are chunky and fat, though, and the bass offers a solid low end. The overall sound almost resembles the analog, organic quality of some of Ross Robinson's productions (think Sepultura's "Roots" or Korn's "Life is Peachy"), as well as the muddy, sludgy quality of some crossover bands of the times like Crisis; this is particularly evident on bouncy, groovy cuts like "The Murderers" (which features a semi-rapped growling effort by Barnes, similar to what he did two years before on "Feasting on the Blood of the Insane"), "Knife, Gun, Axe", and "Snakes". And speaking of Crisis, Six Feet Under taps Karyn, the dreadlocked female singer of the New York-based band, for a duet with Barnes on the heavy "Sick and Twisted", resulting in one of the most interesting tracks on the record (given that you like her voice).

Another guest star that almost gave metalheads a heart attack is the one and only Original Gangster, Ice-T; the rapper and singer of Body Count spits some bars on the controversial "One Bullet Left", while Barnes growls and squeals around, leading to one of the strangest duets in metal. The instrumental in itself isn't great, but at least it's a peculiar experiment that definitely took some balls on Six Feet Under's side.

Among all the crossover temptations, the band luckily didn't forget to deliver some pure, unadulterated old-school death metal; "The Day the Dead Walked" (also chosen as the lead single, featuring a zombified Barnes in its low-budget videoclip), "Waiting for Decay", and "Cadaver Mutilator" are outbursts of brutality all clocking under three minutes each, while the funereal "Necrosociety" closes the album on a doomy, apocalyptic note.

Lyrics-wise, the record relies on the typical Chris Barnes' splatter poetry, but the vocalist seems particularly inspired this time around, and he puts together some really nasty, gore-soaked stories. The concepts are well represented by the grim artwork - looking like something out of a serial-killer horror movie - courtesy of artist Paul Booth.

"True Carnage" sounds like the record of a band trying to find a compromise, retaining its death metal identity on one side and accepting contaminations from the crossover universe on the other. Not everything works, and it could have done without filler material like "It Never Dies". Still, the album doesn't overstay its welcome, and its murky, chunky sound might suit whoever likes sludge-bathed, caveman-style death metal.