Six Feet Under – Next to Die
Release Date: 24th April 2026
Label: Metal Blade
Bandcamp
Genre: Death Metal
FFO: Cannibal Corpse, Deicide, Morbid Angel.
Review By: Jeff Finch
At this point, and for a while now, the question has to have been pondered: what is Six Feet Under’s fanbase? Metatheads who can’t let go of Chris Barnes heyday in Cannibal Corpse, those listening ironically just to hear the ‘eeeeeee! or perhaps in the middle, those that hope to hear something solid and not utterly embarrassing, but expecting it nonetheless. Given that they’re the fourth bestselling death metal act going, there is definitely some sort of segment of the population that digs them. This newest record Next to Die basically caters to that third tier, those of us that have hope but won’t be surprised at hilarity.
Their last album was a good effort, nothing grand or ambitious, just a stab of great riffs that completely outdo, not undo, the vocals of Chris Barnes, It’s no secret that his voice is nearly completely shot, a listen to Nightmares of the Decomposed will confirm that, but admittedly his vocals do sound better than that, comparable to previous album Killing for Revenge. The issue with that album was pacing and repetition (a common theme); the instrumentation was great, a lot of rifts and some solid grooves, and the weak point was naturally Barnes himself. However, in this particular circumstance, while he still did not sound great, the intensely paced tracks did him no favors, as he could not keep up with such speed, so it threw tracks seemingly out of sync. That’s been fixed on Next to Die, but there are still inherent issues with the band.
Chris Barnes is still the weak point of the album, but not so much that a listener would feel the need to just turn it off. What is very apparent while listening through is the incessant repetition: if you forgot the names of the tracks, he will make sure to remind you at least five times throughout the song, typically in succession, and with little in the way of gusto. The remainder of each song, outside of this unending recurrence of song titles, contains groovy, if unremarkable, riffs and a more than adequate rhythm section. As mentioned prior, the band did stow things down for the most part, rarely dropping a beat that could be considered uptempo. In a full marathon listen, nothing stands out at all except “this is not as bad as Nightmares of the Decomposed,” and “good god how many times can he say (song title).” It’s not great, but it’s also not bad, it really can be considered a safe album, one that sees Barnes deliver a slightly better performance (honestly impressive given his age), the band continually bringing the riffs, and no listener left insulted by what they just listened to. If you have any passing interest in this, give it a listen, it’s 45 minutes of a band whose prime is long past but still not making a complete mockery of themselves (again).
(3 / 5)
