13

Finding a middle ground in the worlds of stoner rock and death metal is what Six Feet Under worked at, with varying degrees of success, since they started as a Cannibal Corpse/Obituary side project in 1995. 13 is a surprising return to form for a band that had seemingly run out of ideas when it started releasing cover albums in 2000 with Graveyard Classics. This is their eighth full-length album, their sixth of original material, and follows up the much lighter, almost campy, AC/DC cover album from 2004, Graveyard Classics, Vol. 2, and the lackluster Bringer of Blood from 2003. There are still some tracks here that recall the modern rock posturing of SFU at their worst, "Poison Hand" and "This Suicide" come painfully to mind, but tracks like the classic death of "Shadow of the Reaper" and the opener, "Decomposition of the Human Race," prove that Chris Barnes and company still have a few tricks up their rotten sleeves. The songs are faster this time around and make the lumbering riffs and speedy, if not necessarily original, solos stand out for the better.