Suicide Silence - Suicide Silence

I can feel it already, this is going to be a big one. I put a summary in bold at the bottom in case you don’t have time for what’s ended up being 5 pages. Suicide Silence’s new self-titled album arrives at the climax of a controversial album-release cycle that has been typical in just as many ways as it has been atypical, and being the center of so many different kinds of attention, it is arguably the first majorly significant release of 2017. It was announced that their new self-titled album would feature, for the first time in the band’s history, a significant prominence of clean vocals, to which many fans reacted skeptically or even immediately stiff-armed and which many other fans expressed their openness toward. The new album’s promotional phase took a turn down dangerous roads when the band debuted their new sound via the release of the first single, “Doris”. The heavily Korn-channeling song ushered immediate criticism of Eddie Hermida’s brief uses of a Deftones-imitation brand of falsetto, the switch to a style closer in resemblance to nu metal than to deathcore, and the lackluster production.

This is really what’s made this such a massive album to discuss. Since “Doris” was released, the flurry of negative opinions has prompted dialogue on numerous topics, with some of the most restated mantras being that this “is not Suicide Silence”, that Mitch Lucker would be appalled by this new direction, that “the band should just change their name now”, and that Eddie’s joining of the band has done terrible things for them. These kinds of responses are, of course, not unheard of when it comes to a group sharply altering their stylistic trajectory, but the referendum on this new direction was so overwhelming that it could not end at just that. Prominent YouTube comedian/musician/metalhead Jared Dines gave his thoughts on the song, prefacing his video with the assurance that he likes Suicide Silence and was not making the video to bash them. That video, however, ended up spawning the “TEEHEE” meme, if you will, (onomatopoeic of Eddie’s falsetto on the song) that spread across discussion boards everywhere the album was being promoted. Unlike most instances of negative preemptive reception, however, the band (primarily Eddie and drummer Alex Lopez) lashed back at critical fans, repeatedly fanning the flames of dissent over the new song, even going so far as to drag other deathcore bands into the conflict, namely Thy Art Is Murder. A few weeks before the album’s release, the band released the second track of the album, “Silence”. Because “Doris” had already whipped up the frenzy it did, “Silence” was to the internet firestorm “Doris” created what a jug of lighter fluid would be upon an already engulfed office building. The moody, eerie track, once again exuded tons of Korn influence, drawing inspiration seemingly from Korn’s 2010 “return-to-roots” album, Korn III: Remember Who You Are. Eddie channels the sporadic, schizophrenic crying shouts that Jonathan Davis has made a trademark of his, and the rest of the band backs Eddie up much of the way Korn would probably back up Jonathan, making for a song that neither rekindled damaged or obliterated hopes nor exponentiated the pre-existing rage surrounding “Doris”.

I’ve no doubt been keeping up on all the unfortunate drama surrounding this release, mostly unintentionally. It’s been everywhere, and it makes me wonder if at this point the band just figured any press was good press and decided to just roll with it. On the issue of them changing sounds, I think I’ve made it clear in other discussions that I appreciate bands’ adventurousness and ambition to forge new territory for themselves and for metal, obviously with criteria beyond simply being a new sound in some context, so I had no issues with the premise of Suicide Silence introducing clean vocals and experimenting with their sound when they announced it. When “Doris” came out, however, it was clear that Suicide Silence “experimenting with their sound” was more accurately described as imitating Korn’s sound and/or Deftones’ sound, which they have every right to do if they feel inspired to do so. My issue with it, which was expounded upon with the subsequent release of “Silence”, is that it sounds uninspired beyond the band’s explicit admiration of their prominent influences. It sounds like they just wanted to play Korn/Slipknot musical dress up, and it’s not an outfit that looks good on them. Eddie’s vocal imitation of Jonathan Davis and Chino Moreno sound contrived, and it is the authenticity of the pain in Jonathan’s and Chino’s performances that made them so captivating on songs like “Daddy” and “Be Quiet and Drive” (as well as Corey Taylor’s performance on “Iowa”). With Eddie, and the useless lyrics, the grit-toothed vocal inflections are quite evidently feigned, and they don’t accomplish what Korn and Deftones did as a result. I’ll save as much discussion of the music as I can for later when I get into the rest of the album, but I think I should say that despite sounding unoriginal, “Doris” is not the train-wreck so many people are making it out to be. It’s nothing spectacular, but it’s well-structured, and at least it is an accurate Korn/Slipknot/Deftones portrayal. They retain the punchiness that made No Time to Bleed so enjoyable, and their taking cues from Korn’s Head and Munky in the guitar ambience department was crucial to both their taking on of that nu metal cloak and to keeping the listener’s attention for the song’s entirety, despite being so short. Without the Munky-esque guitar tweaks, the song would be so much more flat. And while we’re on the topic of the singles, the heavily Korn-traced “Silence” does nothing more in the way of convincing the listener that Eddie’s Jonathan-Davis-imitating screams truly coming from a place of torment, and the near-absence of any deathcore elements (even more nu metal centric than “Doris”) certainly hasn’t lifted any disappointed fans’ hopes. It’s an alright song, but the vocals don’t sound nearly as tortured as I’m sure Eddie and company would like to think they do, and nothing exciting is going on in the instrumental department with the open-7^th-string half-step chugging and the rudimentary mid-tempo drum beat following a basic verse-chorus song structure with lyrics that aren’t quite as meaningful or well-delivered as what would deserve their mentally-broken-down-type shouting and moaning.

The band’s course of action after the backlash from “Doris” is understandable to a degree, but the level to which they were unprofessional in their defense of their work was inexcusable. Plenty of bands have weathered waves of disdain for disappointing fans, be it changing their sound or refusing to budge and settling for a career of redundant imitations of their past. Even Gojira had some fans worried when they released “Stranded”, but they let Magma speak for itself and that album definitely ended up winning most people over in the long run (I wrote a little discussion about it a few weeks ago, being that it was my favorite album of 2016). And that’s what I think Suicide Silence should have done. If they are truly confident in this record, they should just sit back and let their work do its work. Unfortunately, the band, in their press presence, has been coming off as very, for lack of a better word, butthurt. It’s the nature of music that people will have their criticisms, and sometimes it’s a lot of criticisms, but the band seems to take it personally and they have not handled it gracefully. I understand that having something you worked on being spit on is hard to deal with, but it would likely have fizzled out or plateaued if Eddie and Chris had not aggravated the already upset fans. And redirecting onto another band and taking an unprovoked, cheap, low-brow shot at their artistic integrity is, unnecessary to say the least.

To shift gears and address some of the cliché fan complaints, I don’t think Suicide Silence’s musical shift obligates them to change their name any more than Sepultura is obligated to do so (they aren’t, they can do what they want). And any collective should be able to venture into new territory as said collective even if their adventures prove fruitless or counterproductive.

I also have no idea what Mitch would think of what his bandmates are doing these days, and I think bringing him up relentlessly is about as productive as speculating about what Metallica would be like if they still had Cliff or Jason. I do find it a bit irksome that so many people are quick to invoke Mitch in these discussions, assuming that they know how he would feel about all this, when the bandmates who knew him personally and artistically still have his passing fresh in their mind and are aware of Suicide Silence as a part of his legacy. I think it’s disrespectful on a certain level to try to speak for a man who died, who you didn’t know apart from his music and his public persona, to the people who knew him closely, both to him and his bandmates.

That’s just the context, and that’s about as much as I want to get into it with this discussion, if not more than I’d really like to. So, with that let’s get into the music…

I’ve already discussed “Doris” and “Silence” in the paragraphs above, so I’ll jump to the album’s third track, “Listen”. On “Listen” the band actually sounds more accomplished and more genuinely experimental, seamlessly blending their obvious nu metal influences with the sinister deathcore they’ve come to be known for. The song is soundly-structured with an eerie chorus and outro on which the creepiness of the guitars just absolutely shine, and for the first time on the album the band actually achieves what they set out to do on this self-titled mission, sounding like a band with reverence for their idols but the artistic dignity to not just copy them. Eddie can still be heard doing his best Corey Taylor impersonation when screaming “the perfect storm will never be good enough”, but it’s brief and he spends plenty of time doing low death growls which, in coordination with the bi-polar guitar assault, makes for the most dynamic song on the album. “Listen” would have been a much more convincing single than either of the two preceding tracks and is my favorite song on the album. The band hits a bit of a bump in the road moving into “Dying in a Red Room”, trying without as much original conviction to do their best version of an ambient Deftones song. Again, the guitar work is decent, but overall, the song makes little progress and doesn’t captivate in the territories in which it lingers. It picks up some tempered intensity by the end, but it peters out quickly without making any real impact on the experience of the song.

The mid-point of the album, “Hold Me Up, Hold Me Down” turns the nu metal heaviness back up, and the pre-chorus of sorts is laced with some tasty wailing guitars and very Fieldy-esque bass slapping. The song meanders sort of awkwardly around Eddie’s pig-squealing during its deathcore-ish breakdown and his faux-tortured delivery of the titular refrain. It’s a bit of a strange spot on the album that kind of serves best as a transitionary moment to the next half of the album, but even at that it fumbles around cluelessly and flails around just doing everything the band can do to put a song together.

The following track, “Run”, is more put-together, but still a bit awkward musically and lyrically. The guitars don’t save the song from its boring fate during the verses as they often do throughout much of album. The distortion on Eddie’s voice during the groovy bass line of the chorus makes the song so uncannily nu metal it’s hard to hear it as Suicide Silence and not a Korn knock-off band. The groove is there in the chorus and it’s catchy, but it kind of makes you wish it wasn’t because it emphasizes the unoriginality of the performance. The song brings no surprises to the table and leaves the listener shoulder-shrugged by the end, leading into “The Zero”, which, luckily, is a bit more intriguing. Eddie still delivers some flounderingly poetic lyrics in the early-years-Moreno style he’s been delivering them in under the guise of conveying intense emotion, and there’s a little bit more voice distortion in the pre-chorus here too. But the song does shake things up a little bit more during the bridge and the pull-off guitar parts during the calm sections keep it above water, and the band finally builds to and pulls off an impactful heavy outro by the end. It pushes back up, not colossally, against the downward slip of the string of 3 lackluster songs.

“Conformity” is the band’s attempt at a Vol. 3-ish vocal-focused ambient “ballad” if you will. Eddie actually sounds a lot like the Slipknot frontman he’s clearly paid so much tribute to on this album and the acoustic guitars resemble very closely those on “Circle” and even give hints of Opeth-influence. The trajectory of the increasing density of the electric instrument and drumming presence that culminate in Eddie doing some more distorted shouting by their climax are no shocker and definitely tired at this point on the album, but before that Eddie sings the best he has on the whole album during the mellow parts, an ability crucial for him to prove after the numerous shaky performances leading up to this one. Aside from that, though, the song leaves little to be remembered by and fades out almost unenthusiastically. Closing the album up, “Don’t Be Careful, You Might Hurt Yourself” ramps up the heaviness and the deathcore vibe with blast beats and guitar riffing that fans of The Cleansing and No Time to Bleed should be plenty familiar with. Eddie still uses some clean vocals and his nu metal-ish shouting, but the band as a whole sounds a lot more comfortable on the closing track, and not just because it’s more proportionally deathcore-esque. The middle portion of the song quiets down to the spooky and then anticipatory mosh-prepping that the band has mastered, ending the album on a very necessary high note (before it whistles off merrily as though to remind everyone to not take it so seriously and type pages upon pages over it… whoops).

Overall, Suicide Silence’s self-titled album accomplished some of what it was meant to, toying with the more respectable side of 90’s nu metal with mixed results, with the project seemingly bogged down by creative corner-cutting that left many parts feeling like cheap imitation when it was supposed to be Suicide Silence being as Suicide Silence as they could be. What was probably meant in tribute to bands like Korn, Slipknot, and Deftones instead often came out hollow and sometimes flavorless. There are a good deal of moments on the album that show the band as being capable of melting these sounds together into a unique dish, but only a few times is it done consistently throughout an entire song. It made for a pretty uneasy 45 minutes, and I think most fans who were scared by “Doris” will still not be thrilled, even by the stronger parts of the album. I think the band shot themselves in the foot a bit with their promoting the album as kind of their “true sound” to fans who they probably didn’t expect to be so damn fickle, and then engaging negatively with these fans who were still throwing their temper tantrums. The album is not a disaster, nor is it a spit in the face of or an uprooting of the band’s status as a deathcore-focused band, and, personally, I found it to be a small step up from the snoozefest that was You Can’t Stop Me. That’s not saying much, however, and I don’t think I’ll be revisiting this thing ever after the tedious listens I gave it to write this, and if fans are as stubborn as they were when “Doris” was dropped, it might be hard for the band to convince them with this album to stop pouting until they get their way on the next album. On one hand I disagree with many of the points the fans have made about how disastrous this is, but on the other, it’s a tough pill to swallow and the way the band shoves it down its fans’ throats is only serving to make the next appointment all the more stressful.