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Suffocation - Blood Oath Banish rooting influence of anything south of the Mason-Dixon line. Atheist, Morbid Angel, Monstrosity, Massacre, Cannibal Corpse, Cynic, Death, Deicide, Obituary – none of the above even flirted with the – yeah, extreme – chalkboard tabs and rhythm section Rambo camps underway in the last two Suffocation records. The latest, Blood Oath, works too well as some ever-apt encapsulation of whatever the fuck “Brutal Technical Death Metal” signifies, even while it’s delineated (rather) easily as an ever-brooding Bruckner aping a particularly self-impressed Shostakovich. Maybe “self-impressed” is the adjective. I’ve never understood the aversion personally. If you ain’t impressed with yourself, who the fuck will be? Who should be? You thank Frank Mullen gives a fuck if his “intelligible” vox sound startlingly close to every single pebble passed past Dave Vincent’s asshole in “Nothing is Not?” You think Hobbs and Marchais care if even given another set of hands they’d never bump dicks with Azagthoth? You think Smith loses sleep over who holds the crown for fastest East Coast kick monkey? No competition where there’s no competition. It’s not tautology; there’s no meaning here to replicate. But goalpost moving isn’t revealed until track four: “Images of Purgatory,” wherein the frustrating dogfight fast/slow guitar wank and a drum figure that could/would find able home with the Florida State University Marching Band is so deftly employed. The solo advances the theme and promptly dive-bombs back into the puerile Russian gymnast shtick that’s got me wondering how much wheat germ ingestion and finger exercises the day’s small hours are devoted to. The music-as-callisthenic and vice versa is wrested from passionless nub-drainers aplenty with riffs enhanced via sci-fi glow-light in “Cataclysmic Purification,” a send-up of “Images of Purgatory,” which the crew may as well reveal as a meaned ‘n’ beefed up yesteryear’s “Anomalistic Offerings” slapped out into the ring, frothing, barking, pissing fuckin’ deeply upon any possible opponent’s hopes at toe-to-toe. It’s almost anathema to bark up any tree but the band’s own. But I won’t let that stop me. Best lyric: There is none, which is why we, men of sound mind and battered body, pray often for the words, “Solo: Hobbs.” Best riff: There’s a hornaplenty, fuckers, even if the lot of ‘em are spittin’ image front to back. Let’s go with “Pray for Forgiveness,” that show-off bullshit, dancing fingers, powered sugar noses shit. Coincidentally maybe, “Pray for Forgiveness” hosts the Best Drum fill, too, which comes forth in the last six seconds, otherwise Smith’s workout is happily no different than Living Colour’s “Cult of Personality.” Best vocal delivery: Easily “Cataclysmic Purification,” where Mullen sounds, uh, startlingly close to ever single pebble passed past Dave Vincent’s asshole in “Nothing is Not.” Best coverart: Robes... Why’d it have to be robes? The last time I enjoyed the robe was Halloween, 1994. I went as the Lord & Savior and drank Kamikazes until I pissed myself. Best moment of Halloween, 1994: Going home with Derek Boyer’s (no relation to the Derek Boyer on bass of Suffocation fame) date – dressed as Betty Rubble. Thanks for the happenin’ time, hon. [Stewart Voegtlin] Suffocation
Blood Oath 2009 Nuclear Blast
type: reviews
keywords:
death metal,
lhp028,
ny dm,
david vincents asshole,
pebbles,
betty rubble,
solo: hobbs,
robes,
christ wet himself,
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It is the first record of this year to make me sick to my stomach. I need fuckin four dramamine after the third song...
Gotta find those Mastodon boys and play this for them. Use of excessive technique does not necessarily entail passionless music.
At least they still manage to have color, depth, and tonal weight to the guitar tone, unlike those two bands. Blood Oath manages to retain at least a bit of the vomitous murk that characterized the early American death metal aesthetic.
I haven't heard this new one yet. The band is still great live, at any rate.