### Suffocation: Souls to deny

#### 19/04/04 || Lord K Philipson

There’s been a little buzz lately about this album. 4 things come to mind in an instant:

1. Why?

2. Peter Forsberg rules.

3. I need coffee.

4. The cover really shows the lack of imagination by Dan Seagrave nowadays, as it’s a poor version of Morbid Angel’s “Gateways to Annihilation”.

Suffocation is one of those death metal band I never got into when they were “hot”, if they ever were just that. I don’t think I’ll be buying a Suffocation-shirt anytime soon anyways, that’s how impressed I am with this album. Funny thing, I have a friend who’s currently driving this bands’ tourbus when I write this and he just told me they dug The Project Hate, so I should be all raving and shit about this album in return.

But I don’t work like that.

There’s absolutely nothing wrong with Suffocation. The blasts are there, so are the damn riffs and the technicality. It’s just that this album pretty much come across as any basic death metal album released today. You know the drill:

1. Good production. 2. Good musicianship. 3. Blastbeats. 4. Ordinary growler. 5. Nothing sticks.

I couldn’t pick out Suffocation among 100 other American death metal bands, I’m sure. I think the main problem is that, and you know how important this is, they are lacking the fucken groove that I want in an album. I wanna put it on and think: “Damn, that’s one groovy fucken riff, let’s shake our asses baby!”. But that doesn’t happen. If those groovy riffs are there, I must have missed them each and every time I have listened to this piece. The album just mangles along, song after song, and I’m still a poet and still don’t know it.

Suffocation are like the today’s meal of any restaurant. You hope it will be some killer shit as the food you ate yesterday was kinda boring, but you end up with basically the same thing, only served at another restaurant. But atleast it was kinda cheap, so you are ok with it.

I seriously have no fucken clue what I’m talking about, but I’m sure that’s a first when it comes to comparing death metal to food, for me.

It feels like I have written this review for countless of other bands as well, and that’s not a very good sign.

So, to sum this short fucker up; Suffocation delievers standard death metal by all means, nothing more, nothing less. I expected more. Alot more, seeing these guys are like veterans and shit.

But I dig their logo. That must count for something.

5 piss-poor Dan Seagrave paintings out of 10

- Information
- Released: 2004
- Label: Relapse Records
- Website: www.suffocation.us
- Band
- Frank Mullen: vocals
- Terrance Hobbs: guitars
- Guy Marchais: guitars
- Derek Boyer: bass
- Mike Smith: drums

- Tracklist
- 01. Deceit
- 02. To Weep Once More
- 03. Souls To Deny
- 04. Surgery Of Impalement
- 05. Demise Of The Clone
- 06. Subconsciously Enslaved
- 07. Immortally Condemned
- 08. Tomes Of Acrimony