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Notes: - A music video was filmed for "Not the Falllen". Click here to watch! Free Metal: Links: - Band logo - Google Videos Results - Official Facebook - Official Flickr - Official Myspace - Official Twitter - Official Website - Mediaskare Records Review information: Album length: 35:57 Review posted on April 8th, 2010 |
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Review
Suffokate is a band that has the potential to really tear things up musically. After about six years of silence, the band finally comes at us with their second full-length album, No Mercy, No Forgiveness to try to prove this to us, and does. However, the problem with this release is that, while the potential to create a devestating release is there, the band just doesn't quite live up to that potential, only to churn out a rather dull and cliché example of early Deathcore. That isn't to say this album is horrible. No Mercy, No Forgiveness is a solid effort with some really driving guitar riffs throughout that push the album along. Suffokate have the ability to properly build up, and unleash, insanely intense and heavy breakdowns that will leave you sitting back feeling as if you were just kicked very hard in the stomach. "Taking the Time to Take Your Life" is the perfect example of that, which has just an intense build up right before the bass drop that kicks off the breakdown. Granted, this example appears throughout the album outside that one song, such as on the next song, "Not the Fallen", however many of them don't have a breakdown that manages to stay as heavy as in that song, which is the case for the latter, which are more along the border of entertaining and lazy. While No Mercy, No Forgiveness is a very unforgiving album when it comes to the intensity of the music, the overall effort falls short of being you will have to rush out and buy. This release isn't really anything new or jaw droppingly impressive. While it's a solid effort, the material here is rather generic and sprinkled once in a while with very simple guitar solo's, like the one on "The Power of Submission" towards the end, as well as the often catchy melodic guitar hook. The drums on here, however, sound absolutely menacing and really drive the album along thanks to the overall quality of them. Of course, the gutteral vocals sound menacing as well, and the guitars work well with the album as far as the heaviness goes, but some work on better, maybe more intricate riffs would have greatly helped this release out. Not all the tracks suffer from this, as sometimes the band manages to perform these rather generic riffs in a way that gives a slight hint of melody to them, such as on "Holiness is Next to Filthiness", which actually add a layer of ambience to the music. Sadly, this is very rare. Overall, No Mercy, No Forgiveness is not at all a bad album, and has a lot of potential. The only issue is that the album's music is heavy enough to keep the listener attentive, but not really as creative as it could be to keep the listener from being growing bored at times. Had the band focused on writing more material and breakdowns like on the track "Taking the Time to Take Your Life" (with exception to last slower breakdown that kind of breaks up the pace of the song), or even "Holiness is Next to Filthiness", then this would have been one amazing release. Suffokate has the potential to really tear the listener's face off, which is evident on here, and hopefully the band's next release will kick up a little more dust and pick up the pace a little more. Until then, No Mercy, No Forgiveness is an album that is worth a checking out. 
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