Legendary SIX FEET UNDER singer Chris Barnes spoke to Thegauntlet.com recently about a number of topics including the band's new album, Death Rituals. A few excerpts from the chat follow:

The Gauntlet: Tell me, if you can, about some of the concepts behind the new album and how it will sound?

Barnes: "It’s hard for me to kinda broadly say what it is, but generally it’s an excellent Six Feet Under album as far as I’m concerned. I’m pretty biased to that, I always get psyched up about putting new songs together and releasing a new album. We really wrote some good songs, and there are some interesting twists and turns. Some real good heaviness going on there. We had a good time and I think it shows. I think it’s a really exciting album. It has a really dark edge to it, and I think it’s for sure my best production yet. Toby Wright had some good people working with me mixing and engineering. Chris Carroll’s been with us for awhile. He’s really the best engineer in the business. I think that all of the people that are into Six Feet Under will definitely enjoy this record. All the people that hate us will probably hate it, but I’m really not writing music for anyone else but myself to begin with so I’m just glad that half the people out there dig it (laughs). That’s good enough for me. You can’t please everyone, I learned that a long time ago."

The Gauntlet: What are your touring plans for the album?

Barnes: "We’ve been looking at some different offers for Europe and some festival appearances over there next summer. Hopefully, we’ll get on tour in the States here in the springtime of ’09, with another run later towards the fall as well."

Read more here.