Review Summary: Deathcore by numbers
I'm sure I won't be making any ground breakingly unique statement when I say that deathcore has a tendency to be a terrible genre. While not an inherently awful music style, the bands who perform it have a tendency to pretty much be a carbon copy of every other band, doing little, if anything, at all inventive or creative to give themselves an identity. Instead they just go the safe route of doing it the same way that works for everybody else. On a slightly more petty note, deathcore bands also have a tendency to be the anthem groups for the "kewl" group of 13 year olds who hate their parents, but that's a different story. Regardless Suffokate seems to be just another by-the-book deathcore project right off the assembly line, offering absolutely nothing to demand the attention of any listener curious enough to waste their time on it.
You see, Suffokate manage to sound like something close to a complete knock off of every deathcore band out there. Sounding almost *exactly* like every DC band I can think of, yet lacks any and all aspects of those groups that make them good, or at the very least halfway tolerable. Lets start with the riffing. They consist of chugging, chugging and a slightly more chugging, with the (very) occasional solo thrown in for good measure. There is no variety whatsoever. The result of really doing the same riff over and over again makes (suprise, suprise) every song sounds damn near the same. Along with this, many songs follow a very similar structure, tone and tempo, only adding to the ridiculous tedium of the album. The obsessively overused breakdowns doesn't help, as when one horribly generic breakdown crops up, there are another fifty immediately following it up. They all just plod along, doing their thang, being "br00tal'' and all without ever doing anything even remotely interesting, likable or different in any way shape or form. Leaving no impression whatsoever, save for the impression that maybe I was wasting my time.
The vocals are also generic and run of the mill as possible. They sound like the poor man's Thy Art is Murder vocals just that much more unappealing. They lack charisma and character, just typical throaty lows and screeches, never ever do they entice interest, and a good amount of the time sound passionless and forced. It's like the vocalist just didn't really care and just went through the motions. To add to this is the lyrics, which, like everything else, are predictable and generic to a near shocking degree. The typical adolescent deathcore lyrical themes of anger, murder and rage that only puberty and teenage angst can provide. Generally, every song (and I do mean every song) are the typical "watch out, we got a badass over here!" themes, being about how much he hates the world, torturing and murdering somebody, or torturing and murdering somebody because he hates the world. Since a running theme in the lyrics is revenge, I would assume that the lyrics are motivated by having their lunch money stolen, having to do extra chores around the house or being forced by their parents to go to bed early.
This is an album that leaves no impression from start to finish, and by the end of the album I can safely say that I've forgotten almost all of it. Its an amateurish album that is repetitive, generic and unbearably boring. Even if you like deathcore, trust me, there is nothing worth of any attention here. Avoid.
