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Suffocation
Effigy of the Forgotten
(Roadrunner - 1992)
Pioneers in brutal death metal and one of those bands that everyone tries to copy. Brutal no-frills grinding guitars and unrelenting speed. Vocals are gurgling extreme low-end growls consisting of maybe 3 notes and are probably my biggest gripe with this style. The riffs are standard and the composition is a continuous brutal barrage, but to their favor, they vary the riffing patterns often in a song. Guitar solos are chaotic anti-musical frenzies. I found this album a monotonous non-musical punishment, the technical riffing notwithstanding. After a couple of listens I started appreciating the precise energetic riffs and the way they handled their instruments but the problem is that all the songs sound the same and the boring vocals simply ruin it. If you want technical brutality then this is for you as this is one of the better albums out there, for music look elsewhere. I am not against brutal death metal - bands like Deicide and Massacre or even sometimes Cryptopsy have shown how to mix this style effectively with musical content. But then again since most brutal death bands are similar in structure, we can assume that non-musical brutality is their defining characteristic. What do I call music you ask? An impossible definition, I'm just using the word in a personal and utilitarian way. But maybe: An arrangement of sounds where the whole is more than just the parts. Where the song takes you places instead of just being a family of notes.
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