By: James Southworth
Rating: 1/5 Stars
I've never listened to Suicide Silence before this album, and I didn't think I ever would. Deathcore is not my style. In fact, I hate it, which is why I will never review an album of that style. I have a personal bias against it, so there's no why I could give any album of this genre a fair analysis. But I understand why people might like this group. They have had two objectively talented unclean vocalists, who do an impressive job with their screaming abilities. On their older material, it feels structurally well put together, with some great drum work and superb guitar work (in my opinion, the guitar work is the highlight of this band). But, still, I would never listen to this band in my free time; I just listened to their older work to get some context into the crazy controversy surrounding this new release. And yes, the band has never done clean vocals before. That is certainly a big part of why fans are mad. But I'm going to argue that that is not the only reason. With the exception of one, possibly two tracks, this new release by Suicide Silence is a pure cringe compilation of "songs", with hardly anything redeemable in their attempts to do what I can only describe as art/nu metal.
Let's talk about the two good tracks (with one of them being merely passable). The one track I will say I did actually enjoy was "Don't Be Careful, You Might Hurt Yourself". This song is intense in all the right ways. The guitar work is gritty, the drum work is interesting, and lead vocalist Eddie Hermida's anger comes across very well as he addresses this person who has hurt him in the past. The song ends on a surprisingly soft note with some bizarre whistling and electronic effects, but it makes the track feel effectively unsettling. The other track to talk about is "Doris". I'm not so sure if this track is good, but it does at least feel like it has some semblance of a song structure. The guitar work in this song shines, and the parts where Eddie is screaming are actually pretty good. It's only when the clean vocals come into this song that it falters. The chorus is absolutely bizarre, with Eddie taking on this falsetto tone that just doesn't work. I can understand why this song had so much controversy surrounding it, but it still isn't nearly as insulting as the rest of the tracks on this album.
It's sad when you can only point to one song on an album that you actually enjoy. The rest of these songs are either mediocre or painful. Unfortunately, most songs fit into the latter category. I'll discuss the mediocre ones first, as there is not much to say about them. One of those songs is "Conformity", which is a fitting song title. This song replicates the style of Stone Sour in an almost insulting way. Literally any Stone Sour song is superior to this track. It is not memorable in any way. At nearly six minutes long, it meanders on way too long. Perhaps if it was at three to four minutes, the song could have been a little better. But as it is, Hermida's clean vocals are not special at all, as he sounds incredibly bored on the song and has no vocal variation at all. The guitar and drum work also goes all over the place in an attempt to sound artsy, I suppose, but it doesn't work. "Run" has some potential in its beginning half, but later on it suffers from the same problems that "Conformity" does. It might actually be more boring, and it's actually shorter than the aforementioned song. "Run" clearly wants to imitate Korn, but much like SS tried to imitate Stone Sour, it falls embarrassingly short. "Listen" has a great instrumental beginning, but it too dissolves into meandering mediocrity and loses any steam it had.
Talking about any of the other songs on this album fills me with dread. "Silence" is what I guess is the title track. But it is just awful. This song clearly has some Deftones inspiration with it, and it does NOT go over well. Something I'll be mentioning over and over for the awful songs is how they feel more like demo tracks than complete tracks. This song is a perfect example of that, as it feels like Hermida can't decide how to emote in both his unclean and especially clean vocals. I get the feeling that Suicide Silence were trying to have an artistic statement with this song, but I simply can't decipher what they were going for. The lyrics are cliched statements coming together trying and ultimately failing to create meaning: "War, berates us/The simplest heartbeat connects us/Rivers are flowing to the ocean/I will meet you at the bottom". That is one of numerous examples of SS trying to be lyrically deep but falling very short. Easily the worst song appears in "Hold Me Up, Hold Me Down". This is probably the hardest song on the album, the one that comes closest to the deathcore style. But I can't imagine even a deathcore fan enjoying this. I was listening to this song on Spotify, a streaming site that has consistently good audio quality. So, this song sounding bad was clearly not the fault of Spotify. I don't know how SS recorded this album, but it sounds like it was done in some sort of amateur way at one of the band member's parent's basements. It's awful on the ears; I could barely even get through the song, shouting "No, I refuse" at one moment because I was so mad while listening. Hermida's screams sound painful here, which is surprising coming from a vocalist who clearly had talent as an unclean vocalist in previous albums. Maybe it's because of the aimless direction of this album that his screaming sounds so unbearable. The guitar work in this song often overpowers the vocals, so everything in the song becomes unnecessarily distorted. This is perhaps the best example of just how much the egregious audio production of this album destroys any potential listening enjoyment.
The awful songs continue with "The Zero", which is a track that imitates Slipknot in a sickening way. There is once again nothing redeemable about this song, with Hermida's clean vocals having noticeable voice cracks and sounding off tune in several instances. If this was only present on one song, I'd say it was purposeful, but these vocal errors appear on almost every song. If the band are wanting to permanently include clean vocals, then it is absolutely necessary for Hermida to get some vocal training; he needs it. This is even more apparent on "Dying in a Red Room", another track that I loathe in the most extreme way you can imagine. This was another track I struggled to even get through because of how horribly everything went together. The guitars sounded out of tune, the drum work was off-kilter, and Hermida's vocals were just going to all sorts of places that simply didn't make any logical sense. I struggle to even call tracks like this one and "Hold Me Up, Hold Me Down" legitimate songs. They sound more like a frightening amalgamation of senseless noises. I honestly think a preschooler could make a track with more sound song structure than many of the tracks on this album.
If you didn't get it already, I hate this album. It is certainly an early contender for Worst Album of the Year. I didn't think I'd find another song I hate more than Linkin Park's "Heavy", but Suicide Silence's "Hold Me Up, Hold Me Down" certainly gives that song a run for its money. Just don't listen to this album; you don't need to subject your or anyone else's ears to that type of torture. This album is overall a sickening insult to music, as many of the tracks here almost defy the concept of a song. This is a failure by Suicide Silence's part, and I am certain they will lose many fans. They will probably not gain many new ones, either.
Favorite Tracks: "Don't Be Careful, You Might Hurt Yourself", "Doris" (it's only passable)
Least Favorite Tracks: LITERALLY ANY OTHER TRACK ON THIS TRASHBAG OF AN ALBUM
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