Band:	Six Feet Under
Album:	Graveyard Classics IV: The Number Of The Priest
Style:	Death metal
Release date:	May 27, 2016
Guest review by:	tominator

01. Night Crawler [Judas Priest cover]
02. Starbreaker [Judas Priest cover]
03. Genocide [Judas Priest cover]
04. Invader [Judas Priest cover]
05. Never Satisfied [Judas Priest cover]
06. Murders In The Rue Morgue [Iron Maiden cover]
07. Prowler [Iron Maiden cover]
08. Flash Of The Blade [Iron Maiden cover]
09. The Evil That Men Do [Iron Maiden cover]
10. Stranger In A Strange Land [Iron Maiden cover]
11. Total Eclipse [Iron Maiden cover]

Ehm... yeah... this is, uhm... not good...

A friend of mine gave me this CD about a month-and-a-half ago. He had bought a bunch of metal CDs in a box at a flea market. Since he knew that I'm a huge fan of both Judas Priest and Iron Maiden, he gave this CD to me. All cover songs of Priest and Maiden. Could be interesting, I thought.

Now, personally I didn't really know who Six Feet Under were, so I looked up some information and discovered that Chris Barnes (ex-Cannibal Corpse) is the singer of the band. I also discovered that they were (not surprisingly) a death metal band. Death metal is not really something I'm a huge fan of, personally. Not because of the music or vocals, but mostly because of the lyrics.

This shouldn't be a problem, though, since it's a cover album. On top of that, we have Chris Barnes, an ex-Cannibal Corpse singer (a band with many fans), so I expected something pretty good...

Oh God... was I wrong...

Let me tell you right off Chris doesn't sound good on this album. He sounds like the Cookie Monster in some of the songs, I'm not even kidding! After listening to the album, I immediately checked out some of Chris's vocals on Cannibal Corpse albums. All I can say is that I prefer his vocals on those songs. I'm still not a big fan of his vocals in general but the vocals don't really irritate me on the Cannibal Corpse songs. Also, he doesn't seem to care. A perfect example of this is "Stranger In A Strange Land". The moment he sings, "Trapped inside this prison, yeah!" you know he doesn't care; in the original song it sounds energetic and powerful. Here it sounds pitiful, to be honest, and it's one of the most painful things I've listened to in a long time. That is, until you come to the part where he sings (and I'm taking liberty with the word "sings" here), "You'll be calling: rescue me!" It's just unbelievably bad. Now I focused on this song since it's a perfect example of everything that is wrong with this album. "The Evil That Men Do", "Prowler", "Invader" and "Nightcrawler" are just as awful.

The band itself... Well, some of the songs they pull off pretty well. I'm not really convinced by the drummer, to be honest; he seems to struggle from time to time with some of the songs. Maybe I'm wrong, but to me personally it doesn't sound convincing.

The production isn't good either, to be honest. Now, it's not the worst I've ever heard, but I can't say it's good or decent.

Is there something good about this album? The selection of songs was nice. Not the ones that have been covered 100 times but some more original choices (a bonus point for originality there). And the songwriting is good!.... yeah that's not really a good sign if the best thing about the album is the stuff they haven't done themselves...

I'm not convinced by this album... Easily the worst album I heard in 2016 (and on top of it one of the last new ones I heard in 2016). I'd like to say that they tried, but it honestly feels like a phoned-in album.