Six Feet Under

Formed in the early 1990s in Tampa, Florida, in the wake of the local death metal scene, Six Feet Under began as a side project bringing together vocalist Chris Barnes, then a member of Cannibal Corpse, and guitarist Allen West of Obituary. Quickly established as a full band, Six Feet Under developed a death metal style often at mid-tempo, marked by a strong groove, repetitive heavy riffs and Barnes’s distinctive guttural vocals, with lyrics focused on horror and gore culture. The group released its first album, Haunted, in 1995, followed by Warpath in 1997 and Maximum Violence in 1999, securing a lasting place on the Metal Blade Records roster and on specialist stages in North America and Europe. Throughout the 2000s and 2010s Six Feet Under issued numerous releases, alternating original albums such as Bringer of Blood (2003), Undead (2012) and Torment (2017) with the Graveyard Classics series of hard rock and metal covers, begun in 2000 and continued notably in 2004 and 2010. Despite frequent lineup changes around Chris Barnes, Six Feet Under maintained an aesthetic centered on a massive sound, simple but forceful rhythms and a direct approach to death metal, carried through to Nightmares of the Decomposed (2020).