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Six Feet Under – Maximum Violence (death metal): Chris Barnes serves up the some of the best death metal vocals available poured over a plate of steaming hot metal. This album has become one of my favorites of the genre, but I can’t tell you how great Six Feet Under’s style lends itself to the included bonus covers. You have never heard such kick ass versions of Kiss’s “War Machine” or of Iron Maiden’s “Wraithchild” until you’ve heard these. It may be heresy, but I like the covers better than the originals. I know. Like a flatulence after burrito night, I was a little afraid and a lot unsure of whether to let that one go. Whether you agree or not, one thing I don’t think that anyone can argue with is that the disc has a pretty entertaining cover of Thin Lizzy’s “Jailbreak”. It’s so bizarre that it makes me laugh every time I hear it. B+

The Crown – Crowned In Terror (Thrash/death): The Crown broke up in 2004, after a fourteen year career that produced six albums that rode the line between thrash and death metal. When I popped this in for the first time and heard the synthesizers on the first track, I got a little worried that I bought the wrong album. Maybe it was some sort of experimental piece written by one of the band member’s girlfriends or something, but within 55 seconds, the doodlydoodly doodlydoodly of rototoms and the machine gun fire of snare signaled the start of a nice round of Swedish thrash. The album is certainly in the modern thrash category, and I have a hard time claiming that there’s anything wrong with it, but I just can’t to seem to get into it. The vocals are metal, the music is driving and technical, but for some reason it falls flat for me a lot of the time. It never makes it above “Ok” on my metal-o-meter and I always end up losing interest and shutting it off before I can figure out why. I can’t argue with a portion of track six, where it sounds like they break into the Night Rider theme in the middle of a song, but beyond that it lacks the excitement to keep me interested. C

Six Feet Under – Commandment (death metal): This is the latest album from Six Feet Under, a band that started as a side project for ex-Cannibal Corpse vocalist Chris Barnes. Barnes has been fronting the band full time for over thirteen years, and you’d be hard-pressed to find better death metal vocals out there. Sometimes I find death metal bands to be comical because they go too far over the top, but I never find myself pulled out of the metal when listening to this disc. The lyrics are gory, but they’re easy to ignore because of Barnes’s insanely guttural style. There are also no blast beats to jar me out of the groove. This is an easy transition album for metal fans who want to explore the world of death metal without feeling like they should be wearing a black cape and makeup. B

Morbid Angel – Domination (death metal): I won’t deny that Morbid Angel has their place at the death metal table, but if you rely on this album alone, you’d never really know that they were a death metal band. They seem to want to accentuate their death metal persona, but this album isn’t even close to as heavy as some of their other releases, never mind comparing them to current death metal bands like Cannibal Corpse or Lamb of God. Maybe the album was affected by that grungy metal sound that was pouring into every corner of music at the time when it was released (early 1990’s), but it really doesn’t have the death metal feel that I’m looking for. C

Six Feet Under – Graveyard Classics (death metal): I mentioned before that there is nothing like the death metal vocals of Chris Barnes, so you can imagine how awesome it is when they’re used to cover classic songs like AC/DC’s “TNT”, or the Dead Kennedy’s “California Uber Alles”. It’s the metallic equivalent of a peanut butter cup. “Hey you got your death metal in my classic rock!” “Well, you got your classic rock in my death metal. It makes as much sense as leather lined denim pants, but it’s oh so good. If you’re tastes span across metal and death metal, this album is a fun ride. B

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