Review by Ben for Suffocation - Human Waste (1991)

Suffocation took death metal and made it something so much more brutal back in 1991. Pretty much single-handedly creating what we now so imaginatively call brutal death metal, these US youngsters turned the intensity up a notch. The production on this EP is not all that great, but it was good enough to hear what they had to offer. Seemingly endless vicious riffs combined with incredible drumming and some of the most guttural and evil sounding vocals yet recorded announced that Suffocation had taken extremity to a whole new level.

A bunch of these tracks would be re-recorded on future albums with much better production (Infecting the Crypts, Jesus Wept and Catatonia), so Human Waste doesn't have as much to offer today as it did on release. But put into context, this little EP has an extremely important place in the history of extreme metal and offers over 20 minutes of excellent and brutal death metal.