Review Summary: Why do I have to review crap like this just to fill Sputnik’s database?
True Carnage is not only the fourth album in Chris Barnes long but uneventful career, Six Feet Under was also a side project when the vocalist was fronting Cannibal Corpse. Listening to
True Carnage will only make you wish that Barnes side project stayed as a side project. What’s ironic to Six Feet Under and Barnes eventual departure/ booted out (depends on who’s story you go buy) from CC is rather hilarious. Here’s why. Back in 1996 when CC was set to record their most technical album,
Vile, Barnes was off touring with Six Feet Under, which Barnes claimed to be only a side project and would not interfere with recording times set for
Vile. When Barnes returned to the fold only to find that the band had recorded the album without him, tempers flared between himself and bassist Alex Webster. Webster initially wanted to go more technical with CC’s sound while Barnes wanted to maintain the mid-tempo, mediocre death metal the band had been chugging away at for seven years prior. Webster and the rest of the band knew that CC needed to change it up a bit to remain vital within the genre. Barnes’s ignorance towards progressing as a death metal unit was strong-minded and Webster decided to cut Barnes loose. Good move too because four albums into Barnes career with Six Feet Under, he already sounds like a dried up, crusty shart (*** + fart) in the death metal genre.
Quite frankly, not much has changed since Six Feet Under’s debut album
Haunted broke out in 1995. Nothing has changed except for the fact that Barnes and crew (members of Obituary, Death and Massacre) have become even more lethargic with their songwriting since
Maximum Violence. Really and truly, the only redeeming qualities on here are a couple riffs that actually strike at something unique. For the most part however,
True Carnage sticks to the same bland, mid-tempo death metal march that we all would have thought was brutal…at the tender age of 12. In some instances on the album, a few of the rhythm patterns and down tuned riffs feel like they were lifted from a Korn album (“Knife, Gun, Axe”), solidifying this rubbish as a complete slap in the face to death metal in general. To only make matters worse, we have Chris Barnes who hasn’t changed his growl style within the last fifteen years. Sounding just as cartoonish as Cookie Monster, his monotonous tone just slides this album further into the ***ter. By the time “One Bullet Left” plays, the one and only Ice–T is there to break up the monotony. However, sucking harder on the nu-metal nipple, Barnes thought it would be a great idea to cash into the genre (slowly dying at this point in time) and instead, brings the absolute ‘lulz’ to the track. Ice-T’s rap/metal hybrid band Body Count sounded great because of the talent flowing through his musicians. In this case, Ice-T sounds more like a pissed off teen spitting out lyrics about how every motherf***** is going to be gunned down and gutted. Barnes lyrics are also cartoonish and rather hilarious where he refers to sodomizing, ejaculating on corpses, and lots of blood and gore. This isn’t exactly a fault because this is death metal we’re talking about. It’s just that Barnes and his half assed attempt at shocking imagery just feels like a well-travelled road.
What’s funny about this review is that you could use this as a template to describe every album the band has produced. Six Feet Under are essentially a joke within the death metal genre and it’s really no surprise as to why Barnes went his own way with this ludicrous side project while Cannibal Corpse went on to bigger and better things. Sure
Maximum Violence, their only claim to popularity, selling a substantial amount of albums (100,000), was a bit of a hit within the genre, but it’s no surprise that people woke up and realized how terrible this album/ band really was (the album went on to only sell a measly 15,000 copies which is quite the drop in fan base). Despite album sales, this is one of the worst of the worst. Every genre of music has a few bottom of the bucket albums;
True Carnage takes it up the pooper.
Note: Factual information regarding the split between Chris Barnes and Cannibal Corpse was taken from the book Choosing Death: The Improbable History of Death Metal/ Grind by Albert Mudrian - pg. 237
