Review Summary: Suicide Silence tries to add feeling to an emotionless record and sounds disjointed and generally mediocre because of it.
Suicide Silence hasn't impressed me, personally. In my opinion, bands both older (
Animosity) and newer (
Whitechapel) have outshone them in the areas of quality and stage presence. I didn't dig
The Cleansing or
No Time to Bleed. They had good highlights, but as a whole the albums seemed to fall apart. As such, I wasn't expecting much from
The Black Crown, their latest release.
I was pleasantly surprised when giving the new album a full listen didn't give me a headache.
The Black Crown isn't anything extraordinary, but I will say that it's better than any of their past releases. The production adds an oomph effect to both vocals and bass pedals when they need it, and lets the band do their own work otherwise. Unfortunately, Suicide Silence hasn't changed much in terms of lyrics or song structure, so expect more of the same in terms of that. This album is devoid of lyrical meaning, varied drumwork, solos, and dynamic guitar passages, but despite the breakdowns, monotonous chugging and riffing, and lyrics that seem to have caught the
Slipknot disease,
The Black Crown does sound better than the rest of the Suicide Silence discography.
There are a few passages of clean vocals ("Witness the Addiction") that attempt to add emotion to the record, but ultimately fail. Sure, they don't sound overtly nasal or fake, but as much as they "fit" with the album, they fall flat in terms of emotional depth. This isn't really an issue of vocals, it's an issue of lyrics. Most of this album just screams "teen angst!" to me, lyrically, which is something I thought I left behind with Slipknot. I just can't jive with an album where an album highlight is entitled "FuckEverything" and has a similar message in the chorus, where the title is repeated countless times. Most of what we hear on this album sounded good when Whitechapel did it with
The Somatic Defilement, but repeating it now isn't going to help the band be any more distinctive.
I can't really say too much for this album. It's nothing you haven't heard before. Sound-wise, Suicide Silence has evolved, if only a little bit. Lyrically, however, they've gone under - way under - and I don't like it one bit. If you were a fan of their older releases, you'll probably like this album, but otherwise, I recommend steering clear and checking out Whitechapel or Animosity or something else better than this.
Recommended Tracks:
4.) "You Only Live Once"
5.) "FuckEverything"
7.) "Witness the Addiction"
10.) "The Only Thing That Sets Us Apart"
