Hello one and all,
Seeing as I promised you a regular
series of vocal analyses and was stuck on choosing who to start with, I figured
I’d go with one of the people who inspired me to do all of this and set my life
down this crazy path in the first place.
The idea
behind these articles is to give you a brief insight into the style of the
vocalists, their history and how they’ve shaped the sphere of Extreme Metal
vocals, and generally make you think a little about why it is people sing the
way they do now. And yes, dear reader, that includes you.
And just to
make it painfully clear, I’m not getting into the obvious arguments of who’s
the better singer for Cannibal Corpse.
So without
further ado, I give you…
Chris
Barnes!
Brief
Overview
Undeniably
one of the most influential extreme vocalists of all time, Barnes’ early output
with Cannibal Corpse and approach to performing vocals inspired a new generation
and, I would argue, pretty much lead to the invention of a whole genre.
Anybody
who’s been into Metal for five minutes will have heard the classic opening
lines “Something inside me… it’s… it’s coming out/ I feel like killing…you”
from Cannibal’s 1994 classic Hammer Smashed Face off Tomb of the Mutilated.
Indeed, for some people it’s the only death metal they ever really get into or
listen to.
The guttural
throaty growls on evidence here are typical of Barnes’ style, rhythmic growls
tempered with held out notes to fill out lines, occasionally peppered with his
distinctive high screams. But he didn’t always sing like that, and nor does he
know, for reasons I’ll get into later in the article.
After
leaving/getting kicked out (depending on how you interpret the story) Cannibal
in 1995, Barnes has been pushing Six Feet Under as his main project, his vocals
being mixed with their trademark groove infused Death metal to great effect.
Bands
Tirant Sin
Leviathan
Cannibal
Corpse
Six Feet
Under
Torture Killer
Influences
Grateful
Dead, Black Sabbath, Motorhead, Venom, Slayer, AC/DC
Technique
- Started off doing thrash bands, and his vocal style at this time was harsh rhythmic shouting along the lines of early Venom, Kreator and Slayer. Here’s Violent Slaughter by Leviathan with Barnes on vocals. His structuring is heavily influenced by the other thrash that was around at the time, though you can still hear hints of Barnes’ trademark groove at points in the first minute and a half of the song.
- Moved into an old school death metal voice on Eaten Back To Life, basically taking the harsh shouting of his earlier thrash style and pitching it lower into a growl. You can hear he’s doing all the growling from the throat on this recording, and this will lead to his voice developing the way it did later into his career. Still, it’s interesting as a case study of the emerging Death Metal genre and it’s differences from the thrash bands that were around beforehand that influenced the first death metal bands.
- On Butchered at Birth and Tomb of the Mutilated Barnes really came into his own lyrically as well as vocally, pushing the boundaries of what people thought the human voice at the time was capable of, after all, he bragged in the liner notes that an "Electronic Harmonizer was not used to create any vocals on Tomb of the Mutilated" for a reason. People weren't used to this kind of extremity in vocal delivery and Barnes spearheaded it, taking it to new depths.
- The Bleeding is the apex of his style, combining his trademark low growls and rhythmic flair to create what many consider to be the seminal Cannibal Corpse Record. I mean, how many songs can you name that are as brutal as Stripped, Raped and Strangled but still catchy?
- After getting kicked out of Cannibal, Barnes began to focus on Six feet Under and becomes a lot less vocally interesting, as he begins to recycle old patterns and just follow the guitars rather than do anything interesting with his vocal patterns. While this stripped down approach to songwriting can be cool (see the song below), it just isn’t as interesting to me and there’s a reason that Cannibal Corpse went on to far higher levels of fame than Six Feet Under.
- If you listen to anything Barnes did in the early 90’s and compare it with how he sounds now, it’s pretty clear that singing using his throat has had a massive effect on his voice, which isn’t helped at all by his well-publicised relationship with Marijuana. I mean, he still sounds alright, but he just can’t hit the same lows he used to be able to, and there’s a reason for that beyond just artistic choice.
Legacy
With the
extreme lyrical violence of songs like Necropedophile, Entrails Ripped From A
Virgin’s C*nt, Butchered at Birth etc.. and ‘I can go lower than you attitude’,
Barnes has for my money the best claim to the title of progenitor of the ‘gore’style
in death metal, and by extension Slam. I find it impossible to think that bands
like Devourment would be doing what they do now without Chris Barnes, their
hallmarks of singing about extreme violence, trying to incite disgust in their
audience and with their vocal style being, at times, so reminiscent of Barnes
at his peak.
Fun facts
- It’s well known that he has a fairly large ego, look up his feuds with Seth Putnam and Travis Ryan (who he inspired in the first place… go figure…) for more information on the darker side of Barnes’ ego.
- He’s also an artist, having designed the first Cannibal Corpse logo, the Six Feet Under logo, their ‘Warpath’ album’s artwork and contributing to numerous other bits of his bands’ artworks while he is/ was involved with them.
- Uses an Sm 58 microphone as a standard, proof that good, reliable but affordable mic’s are used all the way up the industry.
And lastly, here’s his foray into the Used Car Advertising business…
-E
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