La Voz

Issue date: 10/23/06 Section: Arts & Entertainment

Media Credit: Courtesy of amazon.com Another dark art cover symbolic of Suffocation's death metal sound.

Monday, October 23, 2006


Suffocation's new self-titled album hit stores and is taking the world by storm yet again, but is it really worth the storm, or just a mild climate change?

Suffocation has put out a great album, as they always do, but Suffocation (the album)is much slower than all their other albums.

Their other albums like Effigy of the Forgotten, or Pierced From Within, have been heavily focused on fast tempos and a percussive onslaught of blast beats and bone crushing breakdowns, but Suffocation, the self-titled release, is more focused on a new style of brutality, but at a slower pace.

Tracks like "Translucent Patterns of Delirium," sound more like a mix of post-hardcore and death metal combined, but at the same time it keeps the steady brutal death metal chunky rhythmguitar riffs and the inhuman disemboweling growls.

"Prelude to Repulsion," an older track off of the album "Breeding the Spawn," has made its way onto the new album as a classic death metal song inspired by the works of Morbid Angel at the time of release in '93, as the riffing is really thrash/death metal oriented.

Now, the track sounds much fuller after the new production which was a downside as when it first came out with too much treble on the whole album. Fans can now enjoy their older work re-mastered.

As far as production goes, Suffocation have progressed into something much cleaner by keeping the same raw feel from previous albums such as Human Waste and by also fixing their clipping problem as heard on albums such as "Souls to Deny" and "Pierced From Within." This album is just right for blasting on a quality stereo or on headphones.

Now it has the awesome bass response from before, but without the guitars drowning out. Suffocation has put out a great album of course, but nothing too different from before.

They are changing slightly as far as their sound goes, but you get the same feeling of a Suffocation album.

Brutal, yet slower, Suffocation maintains their title of "Kings of Brutal Death Metal" since 1991.


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http://myspace.com/suffocation

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