Most bands don’t last two albums, let alone twelve, but Six Feet Under are not a fly by night. Hell no, although they originally started when the mighty Chris Barnes, who when he wasn’t cumming blood, was doing overdub duties on the sound desk of the Cannibal Corpse emporium of pornographic profanities they have since established themselves as a pioneer of death metal so good that you should be prepared to say “Yes, Satan” like you’re in Fifty Shades of Brutality.
Torment is US death metal at its most malevolent rockability, displaying the ‘tude with obnoxious riffs and slick passages, and completed by the heavy complex gristle of blues style rhythms and double time, sobering up the intense chicanery that death metal riffs contain. What really stands out on this record though is the space and how each instrument makes the most of it.
The band’s collective experience shows in this comprehensive album with the song writing of Jeff Hughell (Brain Drill) being the muscle of the album its heart is pumped from the precision drumming of fellow dentist Marco Pitruzzella (also of Anomalous and Sleep Terror) and expressed purely by twenty-seven year reformed ex-brain eater Chris Barnes (ex-Cannibal Corpse.) Mind, body and soul in a matrix of perfect disharmony.
Without delving into too much technical detail the progression and layering within these songs makes for an easy to follow path for your head to articulate up and down. It’s easy to see why Six Feet Under are leaders in a kitchen full of cooks. As they dice up time into manageable pieces of sonic glory. Set in a marinade of saucy chords while the temperature is set to blast beat. With compositions like this they could win the blessing of any king. Palatable death metal, who knew?
9/10
