Suffocation

Suffocation is a New York Death Metal band formed in 1990, and considered one of the most influential death metal bands of all time. Indeed, almost every biography of the band that can be found will attest to the extent that they are imitated within the genre.

Suffocation is known for in one stroke creating and mastering the rhythmic, thundering style style known as brutal death metal with their complicated and intense rhythms, time-signature changes, jagged song structures, technical playing, odd fragments of melody, chromatic solos, and thunderous, growling vocals.

Suffocation do not rely on a standard song-writing formula. There are no verses, choruses, or bridges. Each song starts in one place, and chaotically makes its way to its end. Riffs do not usually recur, although elements of one riff may reappear in another riff, and solos are placed where they fit within the chaos. That is not to say that the music sounds random. Indeed, it seems deliberately planned out in its unpredictability.

This unpredictability, however, makes Suffocation a difficult act to absorb. It may take a few listens to fully get into the music. Once the blistering assault of musical chaos becomes better understood, it becomes easier to grasp the intricacies that make Suffocation such an amazing band.

Suffocation was most active during the early ninties, giving the world the EP Human Waste in 1991 (the first CD released by now-famous record label Relapse Records), and in the same year their first full-length, Effigy of the Forgotten, an influential, underground success. Their next album, Breeding the Spawn was a failure in the metal underground at the time, mostly due to its production, which was lacking. It didn't contain that critical "punch" that makes a metal album sound powerful; a sense of immediate presence in the recording that commands attention from the listener. The album is quite strong on a musical level, and if you can separate an album's production from its musical content, I think it is quite good. Their next album, Pierced From Within lashed back at their critics with an absolutely crushing production, and some of their most intricate work ever. An EP, Despise the Sun, a more thrash-influenced release, came out in 1998 and was believed for a time be Suffocation's last, as they announced that they were breaking up in 2000. However, in early 2002, they announced they were reforming, and released the album Souls to Deny in 2004, which has received mixed responses from a lot of fans of their older albums, many of whom say that Suffocation have lost their focus. However, most agree that is at least a fairly good album, if not up to Suffocation standards.

Present line-up:

• Vocals: Frank Mullen
• Bass: Derek Boyer
• Guitar: Terrance Hobbs
• Guitar: Guy Marchais
• Drums: Mike Smith

Discography:

Human Waste (1991)
1. Infecting the Crypts
2. Synthetically Revived
3. Mass Obliteration
4. Catatonia
5. Jesus Wept
6. Human Waste

Effigy of the Forgotten (1991)
1. Liege of Inveracity
2. Effigy of the Forgotten
3. Infecting the Crypts
4. Seeds of the Suffering
5. Habitual Infamy
6. Reincremation
7. Mass Obliteration
8. Involuntary Slaughter
9. Jesus Wept

Breeding the Spawn (1993)
1. Beginning of Sorrow
2. Breeding the Spawn
3. Epitaph of the Credulous
4. Marital Decimation
5. Prelude to Repulsion
6. Anomalistic Offerings
7. Ornaments of Decrepancy
8. Ignorant Deprivation

Pierced From Within (1995)
1. Pierced From Within
2. Thrones of Blood
3. Depths of Depravity
4. Suspended in Tribulation
5. Torn Into Enthrallment
6. The Invoking
7. Synthetically Revived
8. Brood of Hatred
9. Breeding the Spawn

Despise the Sun (1998)
1. Funeral Inception
2. Devoid of Truth
3. Despise the Sun
4. Bloodchurn
5. Catatonia

Souls to Deny (2004)
1. Deceit
2. To Weep Once More
3. Souls to Deny
4. Surgery of Impalement
5. Demise of the Clone
6. Subconsciously Enslaved
7. Immortally Condemned
8. Tomes of Acrimony

http://www.suffocation.us/
http://www.metal-archives.com/band.php?id=119

Suf`fo*ca"tion (?), n. [L. suffocatio: cf. F. suffocation.]

The act of suffocating, or the state of being suffocated; death caused by smothering or choking.

The term suffocation is sometimes employed synonymously with asphyxia. In the strict medico-legal sense it signifies asphyxia induced by obstruction of the respiration otherwise than by direct pressure on the neck (hanging, strangulation) or submersion (drowning).

Quain.

© Webster 1913.