Review Summary: The final nail in the coffin of the Welsh quintet's hard-earned legacy.
For a number of years now, the Welsh quintet that is Brutality Will Prevail have been a household name in the UK’s hardcore scene, and it’s not hard to see why. The band’s accessible doom-influenced approach to hardcore seems to be somewhat unique amongst contemporaries such as Your Demise, Desolated and TRC. Fans of the group will be pleased to know that there’s been no dramatic alteration in their sound following the sudden frontman change in late 2012 from Ajay Jones to Breaking Point‘s own Louis Gauthier, as at the core of the album, the doom-laden riffs we’ve all come to know and love are still there and the filthy, filthy guitar tones are present as always. But, if there’s one word to describe
Suspension Of Consciousness, it’s ‘recycled’.
There’s a stench of familiarity absolutely everywhere, with a lot of the tracks sounding like rejected
Root Of All Evil or
Scatter The Ashes b-sides. The album’s completely unmemorable, Gauthier‘s vocals grate at times and the songwriting is all over the place. Take
Burden Of Love for example, as about three-quarters of the way through, the band transitions from a pretty nifty 2-step beat into a completely bizarre section with a messy solo over the top. Further problems come in the form of the clean vocals, a new addition to the band’s sound. Gauthier‘s singing is rarely in tune (see
Tower Of Silence), and it generally makes for an unpleasant listen throughout.
The record offers twelve songs in thirty-four minutes, but what’s up with the four interludes throughout? Album opener,
Delirium, is a simple drone track that serves absolutely no purpose at all.
Ritual is more psychedelic than anything and, due to the solo halfway through, sounds more like an Electric Wizard-turned-hardcore song.
Celephais is just guitar noodling whilst the penultimate
La Mascara Mortuoria is a Spanish-influenced acoustic waste of time. The extensive use of such interludes results in the album lacking any form of cohesion, because as soon as
Suspension Of Consciousness builds up any sort of momentum, it’s interrupted.
Some would argue that Brutality Will Prevail have been dead since the more mainstream stylings of
Root Of All Evil, whilst some would say that that judgement is best saved for 2012′s
Scatter The Ashes. Whatever your opinion,
Suspension Of Consciousness is the final nail in the coffin of the band's hard-earned legacy.
