Suicide Silence - No Time To Bleed (2009)

This review is written by ScreamingSteelUS on Metal Storm.

I am not entirely sure what possessed me to listen to an entire Suicide Silence album. I never felt as though I was missing anything, and I have never felt any sort of obligation to know their music. Yet, I listened to No Time To Bleed anyway. To be honest, at first I didn't hate it. As the album progressed, however, I remembered why I tend to avoid this band.

The first few songs are fairly decent. In fact, I might even term "Smoke" a "good" song. In most of the songs on this album, you get about a minute of solid death metal riffing. If Suicide Silence could take these moments of clarity, condense them into a handful of songs, and then release a myriad of EPs, I would probably find them reasonably enjoyable. Somehow I always forget that deathcore involves death metal, not just self-possessed histrionics being screeched by neck-tattooed teenagers in skinny jeans. When it shines through, it makes tracks like "Lifted" and "Genocide" half-respectable, and these elements are a credit to Suicide Silence's potential. Unfortunately, it is a potential which they largely do not fulfill.

Suicide Silence, like so many other bands of this genre, is much more core than death. Breakdowns, breakdowns, breakdowns… They tend to pile up, and basically after the first one on an album they have expended their worth; things typically have very little to add to a song if you just heard the same musical passage one song ago. Breakdowns must serve as placeholders for actual musical compositions. Can't think of anything else to write? Need a way to stretch out your song for another minute or two? Just throw in a breakdown to take up space until you can think of something better! Or… you can just… leave it there. Fine.

While you do get several instances of inspiration, most of these songs are filled with your bog-standard deathcore fare. The riffs are jarring, atonal, and dysphonic, complemented by chugging galore and Mitch Lucker's incessant screaming. As far as vocalists go, Mitch Lucker is basically the same as all the rest of them. He does high screams, he does low growls, he does nothing special. Too often his screams are distorted or multilayered. It sounds gimmicky and obnoxious. "Suffer" in particular seems like more slow-paced chugging than song, while "…And Then She Bled" sounds like something that would be at home on an Otep album. It seems kind of pointless. Also, that snare drum seems bent on ruining things even more. Hey, Suicide Silence? Yeah, St. Anger called. It wants its garbage cans back. 

At first, I was surprised to think that I could potentially wind up mildly enjoying a Suicide Silence album. There is a fair amount of good ideas here, and with some tweaking (well… lots of tweaking), No Time To Bleed could be a respectable release. Ultimately, it just doesn't come together well enough. And the Alice In Chains cover is lamentable.

Tracks

1. Wake Up
2. Lifted
3. Smoke
4. Something Invisible
5. No Time To Bleed
6. Suffer
7. ...and Then She Bled
8. Wasted
9. Your Creations
10. Genocide
11. Disengage
12. Misleading Miligrams

If you like it, please buy it on their official website/store.

Suicide Silence - No Time To Bleed (2009)

This review is written by ScreamingSteelUS on Metal Storm.
Reference:
ScreamingSteelUS, Suicide Silence - No Time To Bleed review, www.metalstorm.net