Death Rituals is the eighth studio album by American death metal

Death metal

Death metal is an extreme subgenre of heavy metal. It typically employs heavily distorted guitars, tremolo picking, deep growling vocals, blast beat drumming, minor keys or atonality, and complex song structures with multiple tempo changes....

 band Six Feet Under

Six Feet Under (band)

Six Feet Under is an American death metal band from Tampa, Florida, formed in 1993. The band was originally a side project by Cannibal Corpse vocalist Chris Barnes with guitarist Allen West of Obituary...

. It was released on November 11, 2008 through Metal Blade Records

Metal Blade Records

Metal Blade Records is a record label which was founded by Brian Slagel in 1982. The U.S. corporate office for Metal Blade is located in Agoura Hills, California. It also has offices in Arizona, Germany, Japan, Canada, and the UK. The label is distributed in the U.S. by Sony BMG Music...

. It is also available in a limited digipak edition with three live bonus tracks.

On October 6, 2008, the song "Shot in the Head" was posted at Brave Words & Bloody Knuckles as part of their "Knuckle Tracks" online player. The song was removed on October 12, 2008.

Another new song called "Seed Of Filth" is available for streaming on the Metal Blade Records MySpace page since October 21, 2008. http://www.myspace.com/metalbladeeurope This song will also be the first single, with a video shot on October 31, 2008 at Gasoline Alley in Largo, Florida.

Recording and production

The recording process of the album began in May 2008 at the Morrisound Studios

Morrisound Recording

Morrisound Recording is an audio recording facility in Temple Terrace, Florida, owned and operated by brothers Jim and Tom Morris. Since its opening in 1981, Morrisound has been responsible for the popularization of genres such as heavy metal and death metal, but of course caters to every genre of...

 in Tampa

Tampa, Florida

Tampa is a city in the U.S. state of Florida. It serves as the county seat for Hillsborough County. Tampa is located on the west coast of Florida. The population of Tampa in 2010 was 335,709....

, Florida

Florida

Florida is a state in the southeastern United States, located on the nation's Atlantic and Gulf coasts. It is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the north by Alabama and Georgia and to the east by the Atlantic Ocean. With a population of 18,801,310 as measured by the 2010 census, it...

 with Chris Carroll.
The album has so far proved slightly more popular amongst fans than Commandment. Kerrang also gave the album a rare '5K' rating.

Track listing

1. "Death by Machete" - 3:45
2. "Involuntary Movement of Dead Flesh" - 3:28
3. "None Will Escape" - 3:24
4. "Eulogy for the Undead" - 4:17
5. "Seed of Filth" - 4:58
6. "Bastard" - 3:25 (Mötley Crüe
   Mötley Crüe
   Mötley Crüe is an American heavy metal band formed in Los Angeles, California in 1981. The group was founded by bass guitarist Nikki Sixx and drummer Tommy Lee, who were later joined by lead guitarist Mick Mars and lead singer Vince Neil...
   
    cover)
7. "Into the Crematorium" - 3:42
8. "Shot in the Head" - 5:02
9. "Killed in Your Sleep" - 4:37
10. "Crossroads to Armageddon" - 2:08
11. "Ten Deadly Plagues" - 5:10
12. "Crossing the River Styx" - 1:16
13. "Murder Addiction" - 3:56

Digipak edition bonus tracks

14. "Victim Of The Paranoid (Live)"
15. "Revenge Of The Zombie (Live)"
16. "Human Target (Live)"

Personnel

• Chris Barnes
  Chris Barnes (musician)
  Chris Barnes is an American singer-songwriter, best known as a death metal vocalist recognized for his very low guttural vocals and explicitly violent lyrics...
  
   – vocals
  Death growl
  A death growl, also known as death metal vocals, guttural vocals, death grunts, and harsh vocals among other names, is a vocalisation style usually employed by vocalists of the death metal and black metal music genre, but also used in a variety of heavy metal and hardcore punk subgenres.Death...
  
  
• Steve Swanson
  Steve Swanson
  Steve Swanson, of Tampa, Florida, is the current lead guitarist for the death metal band, Six Feet Under. He took over guitar duties from Allen West . Allen left the band in late 1997. Before Steve joined he was in Massacre with Terry Butler on bass...
  
   – guitar
  Electric guitar
  An electric guitar is a guitar that uses the principle of direct electromagnetic induction to convert vibrations of its metal strings into electric audio signals. The signal generated by an electric guitar is too weak to drive a loudspeaker, so it is amplified before sending it to a loudspeaker...
  
  
• Terry Butler
  Terry Butler
  Terry Butler of Tampa, Florida, U.S., is the current bassist in the death metal band Obituary. He was also a member of Six Feet Under, Massacre and Death...
  
   – bass
  Bass guitar
  The bass guitar is a stringed instrument played primarily with the fingers or thumb , or by using a pick....
  
  
• Greg Gall
  Greg Gall
  Greg Gall, of Tampa, Florida, was the drummer for the death metal band, Six Feet Under. He does not play the classic death metal style of drumming...
  
   – drums
  Drum kit
  A drum kit is a collection of drums, cymbals and often other percussion instruments, such as cowbells, wood blocks, triangles, chimes, or tambourines, arranged for convenient playing by a single person ....
  
  
• Chris Barnes – producer
  Record producer
  A record producer is an individual working within the music industry, whose job is to oversee and manage the recording of an artist's music...
  
  
• Toby Wright
  Toby Wright
  Toby Wright is a record producer and mixing engineer who has worked with artists such as Alice in Chains, Metallica, Sevendust and Korn. He is currently in Nashville, Tennessee working on Kara Clark's latest Ep.-Producer:...
  
   – mixer
  Mix engineer
  A mix engineer, also referred to as "mixing engineer", is a person who, once all instruments, voices, and sounds, etc., have been recorded, creates what is called the final version of a song, hence the term "mix engineer"...