Review by Daniel for Suffocation - Suffocation (2006)

How good are favourite bands then? In fact, I’d go so far as to say that I quite often enjoy my favourite bands more than other bands which is interesting, isn't it? They just seem to appeal to me a little more for one reason or another & New York death metal legends Suffocation have been the long-time leader of that pack as their sound & technique is simply so in tune with my own view on what extreme music should be. I’ve made no secret about the fact that Suffocation’s classic period is about as good as metal gets for me personally but what makes them sit in such a prominent position in my affections is the quality of lesser known releases like this one, the second full-length after their solid return to the scene through 2004’s “Souls To Deny” album.

The general consensus around 2006’s self-titled record has always baffled me to be honest. Sure, it doesn’t try anything terribly new & tends to reside primarily in realms that Suffocation had built for themselves more than a decade earlier but it just does what it does so fucking well guys. I truly believe that the only difference between a merely decent Suffocation release & a truly mind-blowing Suffocation release is the quality of the production job because I don’t think they’re capable of writing anything that’s not ridiculously strong. They sit way too far above the competition for that.

And when I say “they” I’m really talking about chief song-writer Terence Hobbs & front man Frank Mullen because they’re the only band members to have stayed the entire course yet Suffocation continue to churn out records that… well… sound exactly like Suffocation. Unlike the AC/DC’s of the world though, I find that I can not only handle another helping of exactly the same shit as Suffocation have dished up several times before but I go back for triple helpings. A lot of the reasoning behind that can be attributed to the fact that bands of this ilk simply don’t come around very often. There’s a class about Suffocation that literally no one can touch, including the highly regarded peers that they’re generally compared with like Dying Fetus, Cryptopsy & Nile. The incredible knack for balancing brutality & complexity within their riff structures could have come from no one else & those twisted yet highly expansive chromatic guitar solos are a clear trademark (check out the lengthy one that makes up the entire mid-section of "Abomination Reborn"  for an example of one of Terence’s best). Despite my close affiliations with the brutal death metal scene, I've always preferred a bit of intelligibility in my death grunts too & Mullen is the best example you'll find as he somehow manages to achieve monstrous savagery while still allowing the listener to understand the message behind some pretty imposing lyrical content (see "Entrails of You" for example). 

If we take a look at the self-titled album in a little more detail though, the first thing that’s worth mentioning is that (unlike “Souls To Deny”) they’ve got the production right this time. As soon as I heard that I knew that I was in for a devastating journey & indeed that’s what I received. Short, hellish intro track “Oblivion” is perfectly suited to introducing the annihilation that’s to come with opener “Abomination Reborn” being one of the band’s most brutal offerings & highlighting powerhouse drummer Mike Smith’s incredible strength & endurance in no uncertain terms thanks to an ultra-heavyweight drum sound. It’s a great way to kick off the record. Things settle down for a few tracks from there with some solid & muscular outings that don’t disappoint but can’t quite match the dizzying heights of their opener. By the time we hit the midpoint of the tracklisting though, order has been well & truly restored with four of the next five songs being elite examples of the brutal death metal subgenre, particularly “Translucent Patterns of Delirium” (my personal favourite) & “Regret” which are nothing short of perfect in my eyes. The album closes with the now obligatory rework of a song taken from Suffocation’s poorly produced “Breeding The Spawn” record in “Prelude To Repulsion” which easily manages to eclipse the original version. It does sound just slightly out of place here though as it’s both a lot more consciously technical & a touch less chunky & brutal than the other nine proper songs.

At the end of the day, I can’t imagine why any true Suffocation or brutal death metal fan wouldn’t completely flip out for this stuff to tell you the truth. Some tracks have less impact than others but the highlights are so strong that I’ve found it hard not to continue to return to this release repeatedly over the 14 years since I first encountered it. Does it compete with the band’s classic period releases? You know what, it might not be a match for Suffocation’s most accomplished & ultra-premium works (“Pierced From Within” & the “Despise The Sun” E.P.) but I wouldn’t place it too far behind classics like “Effigy of the Forgotten” & the “Human Waste” E.P. if I’m being completely honest. I think some of that comes down to the fact that those releases don’t sound quite so fresh these days due to the unmitigated flogging I’ve given them over the years as well as the slightly more polished & modern sound that the self-titled benefits from but don’t let this one pass you by if you have even a passing interest in this band or in brutal/technical death metal in general.