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Suffocation: Suffocation

06/08/07 || The Duff

About five years on from their reforming, Suffocation are back with their self-titled album, probably their most brutal, focused effort since “Pierced From Within”. Although very few elements of “Suffocation” comprise anything you haven’t heard this band (and a million of its copycats) churn out before, the members of Suffocation have somehow managed to sidestep the criticisms of rehashing what’s already been done simply by writing yet another quality album, full of all the great riffing, catchy hooks and killer breakdowns one would expect to purchase (or download) from such an outfit. In a way, this band started the fucken genre, so to keep going what your core fanbase essentially demands of you isn’t really much of a criticism, even if you aren’t giving those who’ve already purchased your classic material a reason to buy your album other than IT’S A NEW FUCKEN SUFFOCATION ALBUM!@*%@!?; hell, from the strength of “Suffocation”, there are few that play this style of death metal better in my opinion, so fuck all the dissenters (for now; who knows how I’ll feel with the next album – haha!).

Things open up with an entirely unnecessary instrumental consisting of some artificial harmonics and wammy bar masturbation. I’m guessing its sole purpose is to combat piracy, so that those downloading the album get a brief second split between “Oblivion” and the raping of the ears that is the first real track, “Abomination Reborn”. Wholly fuck, does this track kick things off with a bang – the listener is hit with all the familiar trademarks of this pioneering metal act: insanely technical and ultra-precise guitars, out of the world drumming (as much as the genre has progressed ever since this band started out, I still believe Mike Smith to be practically untouchable in the realm of drummers), bass-heavy riffing, and one of death metal’s finest vocalists (although I believe the lyrics to have been made too intelligible in places) – Suffocation are back in force.

Where I think that this album doesn’t quite match up to the band’s earlier material is that Suffocation have lost some of their identity (as much as “Souls to Deny” comprised more mediocre riffing, you couldn’t refute that it was 100% a Suffocation album) – they sound like many of the clones which they helped spawn. Also, the strength of the album begins to falter once the listener gets past “Bind Torture Kill”, where the tunes alternate between Suffocation magic and a regular, repeated death metal formula; the tracks are strong, to say the least, but offer nothing new to someone who may even be relatively new to the sub-genre (like myself). The production is absolutely spot-on, emphasis being spent on Mike’s drumming, which leads this album like no other Suffocation album before it; I would go so far as to say that it is the predominant instrument, where every hit has been made to stand out perceptibly at the expense of not being able to make out the guitars quite so finely – I think that overall, this works, as the guitars aren’t all that far drowned out, and it makes “Suffocation” sound heavier than fuck in a bag full of bricks.

A couple more gripes include the clean intro to “Redemption”, which doesn’t belong in the slightest, and the fact that Suffocation are writing songs now, and not so much jamming their tracks with fuckloads of riffs – I hope they keep the writing up to this standard for the next release, yet revert to their making tracks three and half minutes worth of twenty-plus riffs. On two final positive notes, the solos are incredible, and actually appear to have been well thought out for a change – not the hyper-fast rambling shit constituting their earlier releases that sounded like Kerry King on a bad day; and the re-recording of “Prelude to Repulsion” is fucken mind-blowing, proving just how much “Breeding the Spawn” suffered from a botched production job.

Get this; it’d be worth it (Hell, the booklet pics of Frank Mullen are worth the price alone – that, and Derek looking like “What the fuck am I doing in a band with this fucko?!”).

8 bands still with the magic out of 10.

Information
Released: 2006
Label: Relapse Records
Website: www.suffocation.us
Band
Frank Mullen: vocals
Terrance Hobbs: guitars
Guy Marchais: guitars
Derek Boyer: bass
Mike Smith: drums

Tracklist
01. Oblivion
02. Abomination Reborn
03. Redemption
04. Bind Torture Kill
05. Misconceived
06. Translucent Patterns of Delirium
07. Creed of the Infidel
08. Regret
09. Entrails of You
10. The End of Ends
11. Prelude to Repulsion

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