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By JEFF MAKI
Deathcore—what a cool fucking name. And yes,
it’s fitting for Suicide Silence. There are not
many American metal bands that have put out as an abrasive
an album as No Time to Bleed and had any amount
of success (No. 32 on Billboard’s Top 200). This
follows 2007’s The Cleansing, which to
date has sold an unprecedented 70,000 units in the U.S
alone.
Suicide Silence is to "The New Wave of American
Heavy Metal" as Slipknot was to nü-metal in
the late ‘90s. They aimed to take away the commercial
appeal, silliness and predictable song,s and overwhelm
it with chaos from all sides. Things needed to get dangerous
again, and they succeeded. Suicide Silence combines
death metal, hardcore and grind with ferocious breakdowns
that conjure visions of broken bones and blood splattering
in mosh pits worldwide. Imagine The Black Dahlia Murder,
Napalm Death and a band like Whitechapel playing together.
Songs like “Wake Up” and “No Time
to Bleed” are the blueprint for deathcore, both
climaxing with muderous breakdowns. “Smoke,”
“Lifted” and “Genocide” are
grindcore to the bone, done Suicide Silence style. There’s
nothing to single out here as experimental—this
whole style is an experiment of all forms of extreme
music. Vocals are high-pitched and guttural growls,
split equally, and fly at you with reckless abandon.
The album was produced by Machine (Lamb of God, 18 Visions,
Clutch), who no doubt adds to the abrasiveness and filth
of the album. My personal favorite might be “…
And She Bled,” a brooding instrumental laden with
a sample of what seems to be a 911 distress call from
a woman amidst a violent murder. Ah yes, deathcore—a
cool fucking name indeed. |
