I’ll it that Suicide Silence kind of fell off my radar for a couple of years recently. I was first introduced to them back in 2009 and got into them via one of their best songs, in my opinion, “Unanswered”. When I first heard “Doris” I was a little surprised, but at the same time I was intrigued. I normally go into albums with an open mind so I figured it was worth giving this album a go.
Arguably one of the most controversial songs the band has released, “Doris” opens the album in the style that Suicide Silence had become famous for. Distorted down-tuned guitars and the harsh vocals of Eddie Hermida seem almost at odds with the chorus of the song however. The higher clean vocals are a bit off but the lower clean vocals actually fit rather well. I’ll it that the intro is a bit odd, but aside from that it’s actually not a bad track. I’ve heard much much worse from bands.
“Silence” takes a slightly similar form except that it features slightly more clean vocals alongside a kind of spoken word style as well. As with the previous track, the clean vocals are a mixed bag of fitting rather well and not really fitting at all. It’s a better track though and I did find myself nodding along at points.
Opening in an almost Sepultura like style, “Listen” reintroduces harsh vocals except they are alongside sparse sections in the most case. It’s almost as if this track is a look inside the mind of man with each section representing a dark part of the person’s history. “Dying In A Red Room” sounds a little bit like a Stone Sour track in that the guitars have a lot of crunch to them and clean vocals dominate the centre of the sound spectrum. The ending of this track is a little bit messed up in that the guitars make what can be considered a cacophonous noise alongside heavily reverberating delays of the words that Eddie was previously saying.
“Hold Me Up Hold Me Down” opens with an exchange between band before the distorted guitars that were present in “Doris” reappear alongside harsh vocals from Hermida. A breakdown that consists of some insane guttural vocals then manifests itself around the 3:52 mark and it’s honestly difficult to make out what he’s saying. Whether that’s due to the stupid amount of distortion of the vocals is hard to determine.
Opening with some kind of a drum fill, “Run” opens very aggressively and then drops back again to a similar style that was introduced on “Dying In A Red Room”. It’s one of the better tracks on the album in that it doesn’t feel as though you’re tunneling through the mind of a man.
“Zero” continues the vibe introduced on the previous track although it’s a much darker affair. With heavily reverberating distorted guitars in the verses and haunting clean vocal melodies in the choruses, it’s one of the more intriguing tracks on the album. The last couple of seconds of the song take a much darker turn and a breakdown that SS is famous for comes in to end the song on a heavy note. “Conformity” almost sounds as though it has been lifted from Opeth’s Damnation record. Eddie’s vocals sound similar to Mikael’s clean in parts and the overall instrumentation is similar to “To Rid The Disease”. It’s obviously not as good as that track, but it’s still a rather good track.
Ending things with some metal, “Don’t Be Careful You Might Hurt Yourself” brings back the traditional Suicide Silence style that’s been noticeably absent from the album. The track then fuses the older elements with the newer parts such as clean vocals and arguably blends them better than a lot of the previous tracks. A good ending track to this rather varied album.
When I first heard the tracks from this album I wasn’t really sure what to make of them. I was at first a bit confused by them, however over time they have grown on me. The clean vocals from Eddie work in the places where they are meant to be and the overall album as a concept kind of works. Although, I think they need to try and avoid writing songs that sound like you’re traversing a plane of oblivion…
Suicide Silence is released on 24th February
