Blood Oath

Suffocation are truly the masters of brutal death metal, as stated in the review of the self-titled album, they have a very well defined formula of song craft and generally follow it. Well, with this album, they decided to change it up a bit subtracting some of the technicality of some riffs like those on Pierced From Within and the self-titled, favoring doomier structures, more stupendous solo work, and their brilliant brand of NY death metal breakdown jams.

The production is easily the cleanest Suffocation has seen, ever, and actually fits the progression the band have been making from the dense, fuzzy guitar sounds of Effigy of the Forgotten to the sludgier sounds of the self-titled. The bass is fairly high in the mix, but not as pleasing as a tone as on Pierced From Within, their technical opus (sadly not featuring Mike Smith). The guitars, drums, and vocals are on an equivalence in volume with the vocals and drums edging out very slightly.

The guitars, oh boy the guitars are brilliant on this album. From the opener title tracks very familiar breakdown to that great bridge tremolo riff in the very same song we have Hobbs and Marchais' high points in song writing. The tone is much more refined than on any of the previous albums, lacking that shiftier sludgier guitar tone that I actually think Suffocation sounds better with. The solos are excellent, with Hobbs showing off his sweeping ability and his strange vibrato trem bar usage that make his solos sound so interesting. Marchais sounds exactly like Doug Cerrito, speedy high-pitched runs and trem bar abuse.

The bass has been accounted for, so onto the drums. Mike Smith sits again to wreck the kit with his sickeningly tight blast beats and his flurry of double bass and always interesting cymbal work. His fills are, as usual, a little bit of a letdown and don't compare to his main rhythm abilities. I'm pretty sure Mike and Frank write most of the lyrics, so he gets a thumbs up for making the lyrics much better than on the last album, where the psychological aspect was taken down for a slight return to "evil" themes like on the first two or three albums mixed with their newer lyrical approach.

The vocals, on the topic of lyrics, are of course well executed. Frank Mullen has managed to do these ridiculously guttural vocals, with extremely well pronounced words, betraying the harsh style and intensely deep nature of his growls.

The music is brutal as usual, and thusly is hard to listen to more than 5 or so songs, but you can be guaranteed that if this were a live setting, it wouldn't matter, because you'd be moshing and headbanging to your heart's content, probably only looking up and stopping to watch Frank bark some impressive line or Hobbs weaving his solo wizardry into the songs intense structures and breakdowns.

In the end, buy it. You probably like death metal if you came here, and therefore Suffocation is a must, and this album is well performed and over the top in its fucking awesomeness. Suffocation really came back to form with this one.