Review by Jeger on August 4, 2024.

Cannibal Corpse and Obituary, even Deicide and Morbid Angel - boys amongst men in the presence of Suffocation. The band got their start-up north (NY) in 1988, and since the release of their debut LP, Effigy Of The Forgotten (1991), there’s been no question as to who wears the pants within the USDM scene. Brutality! Breakdowns and bludgeoning riffs, down-tuned and technical to the max. Definitely not your Becerra Possessed or your Schuldiner Death material: no crude diabolism and no classically inspired deeply philosophical shit. But a mere lick in the blood & guts department, for you see, Suffocation let the savagery of the MUSIC to do the talking and not so much the lyrics. 

They’ve always just done it heavier and with more balls in NY, and let’s not forget about a little band from Maryland known as Dying Fetus… Death metal rednecks like Obituary know how to shoot deer, drink beer, and down-tune their Stratocasters pretty well, but when it comes to total and complete musical devastation on all possible fronts with zero mercy or fucks to give, it’s all Suffocation, all day. As if getting “Stripped, Raped and Strangled” or “Fucked With a Knife” to the sound of blood-soaked Floridian death metal wasn’t brutal enough… People didn’t like Suffocation at first, because people fear what they do not understand, and “Effigy” wasn’t exactly an easy album for one to wrap his/her head around. Impossibly heavy and bewilderingly technical compared to anything anyone had bore their ears to previously within the scope of extreme metal outside of maybe the above-mentioned Deicide and their supernatural “Legion” LP. 

“Effigy of the Forgotten” was so ahead of its time that it could be released for the first time today and still bedazzle the cum out of everyone. Even the cover art by the legendary Dan Seagrave is timeless and production? Forget about it. Engineered by the renowned Scott Burns at Morrisound in Tampa, Florida. Guess the Florida boys stayed home with their blankies and boppies for the duration of its recording. Don’t wanna disturb grown men at work… The texture of this sonic tapestry like Peruvian cotton in its velvety richness and yet so gnarly at the same time. How Scott did it, no one will ever really know. Okay, someone knows but that doesn’t mean they can do it like he did. Everything from the tonality of the kick drum down to the density of the bass tracks is just ear candy. Scott’s greatest achievement? I would say so… 

“Liege of Inveracity”, the titular track and “Infecting the Crypts” - the opening three tracks on the record that happen to also be among the band’s more legendary album cuts hit with so much gut-level impact that you’ll be stifling your blood vomit, all the while as you bang that diseased head of yours. Other deeper cuts like “Mass Obliteration” and “Jesus Wept” play out a bit differently as they cross over into punk and thrash riffing territories during their opening moments before Suffocation revert back to what they do best, ie, pummel your asshole with riffs and blasts. How do you even critically break this shit down and where would you even begin? Right at the heart of the monster, which was always the rhythm section led by Mike Smith. I said RHYTHM, not just blast-beats and kick-drum paradiddles but a genuine sense of old-school groove a la Suicidal Tendencies or Biohazard, but all scrambled up in the technical carnage: “Reincremation” - written by Smith and by far the album’s most linear but radical, most thrash-tempo’d and yet still hammer-gut fucking brutal track on the record. The difference between Mike Smith and every other extreme metal percussionist is quite simply the power on the snare end of the blast beat. Yeah, notice that? Literally no one has ever been able to snap that cord like Mike and it was one of the many attributing factors to the violent nature of Suffocation’s sound up until his departure. That and those frenetic leads that always freak you the fuck out and just don’t belong but at the same time do… 

Lyrical delving into the realm of the afterlife, anti-Christian themes, and the existential to tantalize your perceptions and get the ole noodle fired up, or placed in a blender… There’s a spot of what looks like bloody cum over there in the crypts, must be an infection… Gotta go there at some point I guess, it is a death metal album and that grisly-as-a-bear-attack album cut is the above-mentioned “Infecting the Crypts”. It’s all about infected soil interacting with human corpses: weird fluid excretions and rapid pace decomposition. Hungry? 

Mike departed from the band in 2012 and founding vocalist/heart & soul of the project, Frank Mullen pulled the plug in 2019. Lead Guitarist Terrance Hobbs is the sole remaining original member (*). Suffocation’s last album, “Hymns From the Apocrypha”? Let’s just say that they don’t make ‘em like “Effigy” anymore… For some bands, the show must go on, even if it’s without their celebrated and longtime players who are realistically irreplaceable, but nonetheless still are, and you can’t blame dudes for wanting to try and continue such a fine legacy. Guess what? They’re STILL doing it heavier and with more testicular fortitude than the rest, especially considering the plastic nature of recent releases by who? The entire Florida crew… Deicide, Morbid, Obituary, and Cannibal (originally from Buffalo, New York but relocated to Tampa, Florida at the very start of their career so as to take part in the region’s then-burgeoning death metal scene) have all released questionable LPs over the past seven years, and I’m putting that politely. Cartoons man… Obituary aren’t far removed from making fucking cartoon music videos, okay? So, let’s take a moment to just forget about the current scene and reflect on the glory of the apex of death metal - the glory days of the genre that are so eagerly emulated by contemporary bands but never to be relived again. Oh, how the time does fucking fly… Here’s to brutality done the Northern way! Here’s to Suffocation…

Rating: 10 out of 10