Graveyard Classics

by Jason Birchmeier A year after Six Feet Under debuted their new guitarist, Steve Swanson, on Maximum Violence, the Chris Barnes-fronted band recorded an all-covers album, Graveyard Classics. Most of the featured songs are generally well known ("TNT," "Smoke on the Water," "Purple Haze," "In League with Satan"), which is a little disappointing, since some of these songs have been covered a million times before. However, that seems to be the idea -- reconfigure metal standards for the death metal age. The end result is indeed curious, if not something worth returning to for multiple listens. Graveyard Classics seems well in line with the cartoonish slant of Six Feet Under, and listeners who enjoy the band on that level will surely find plenty of entertainment here.