Lunch of Champions

Suffocation - self-titled review

Suffocation’s self-titled album came out in September, and that is my first beef right there.  Self-titled?  How many death metal bands can you recall have put out a self-titled album?  Reading a title that creates an image in your head of death, gore or horror has a lot to do with the appeal of the genre.  Butchered at Birth.  Altars of Madness.  My Arms, Your Hearse.  Releasing a self-titled album feels like they aren’t trying. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

But hey, I can get past that so long as the music is killer.  Well, it really isn’t in my opinion.  Most metalheads want a whole album of great songs that you want to hear from start to finish each time you play it, but this one makes me start skipping tracks half way through.  Maybe if the production would have been different, it could have covered up some of the short comings.  My main problem with it is the rythmn guitar tone.  It’s weak and too low in the mix.  The drums seem to take center stage, which is good since Mike Smith is one of the best drummers out there, but when a blast beat kicks in, what’s the point of playing a crushing riff if you can’t hear it!   Even when there is a break in the song and you only have the one guitar playing, I have to perk up my ears just to hear it. 

My other problem is that some of the lyrics read like an emo kid’s spiral note book.  “Why am I here?  What did you say?  Stop talking to me”  are the opening lyrics to “Translucent Patterns of Delirium.”  That doesn’t sound like death metal to me.  I read a review that hyped this album up immensely before I heard it, and maybe that is the reason I’m disappointed, because I bought into one person’s hype and my expectations were very high.  Sorry to say this album doesn’t stand on equal ground to their albums from the 1990s.