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Palladium Times Square

44th and Broadway, 10036, New York (NYC), NY, US

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Doors open: 19:00

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Suffocation biography

Suffocation are a heavy metal band hailing from Long Island, New York, USA who formed in 1988. They are known for being one of the East Coast’s premier death metal bands and one of the most influential tech-death bands in the whole genre.

I guess we can let the state of New York off the hook for not giving us as much great death metal as places like Florida, Gothenburg and Stockholm. In between Patti Smith, Talking Heads, The Velvet Underground, Jay Z, Biggie Smalls and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, I think they’ve earned the right to be lacking in one or two genres. Even then, they’ve still given the world two of the most respected and well known death metal bands in the world in the form of Cannibal Corpse, and the band that pioneered the technical death metal style, Suffocation. In fact, if it wasn’t for Frank Mullen’s vocal style on their album “Effigy Of The Forgotten”, then we probably wouldn’t have death growl vocals as we know them today. Needless to say, Suffocation are a very important band.

The first incarnation of Suffocation was put together by Mullen in 1988, however only he and bassist Josh Barohn lasted into the bands classic line-up after they first formed. The classic line up came when Mortuary, a local band who had been playing a few gigs with the fledgling Suffocation , split up. Their guitarists, Terrance Hobbs and Doug Cerrito, along with drummer Mike Smith got in touch with Mullen and the classic line up was formed. By 1991 they had signed to Relapse Records and had released their first E.P, called “Human Waste”, already their brand of extremely technical metal blackened by grindcore influences was unlike anything many fans of extreme music had heard before, but none of them could be prepared for what could come next.

Their debut, “Effigy Of The Fallen” was released the same year and hit the metal scene, that was already in the rudest health it had ever been in, like a meteor. To this day it’s cited as holy text by most death metal bands, and deathcore groups owe most of their existence to it. The band released two further albums, “Breeding The Spawn” and “Pierced From Within” and toured relentlessly around it before internal friction and tour exhaustion made them split up in 1998, after releasing one last E.P in the form of “Despise The Sun”. However, they weren’t going to stay down for long and triumphantly reunited in 2003.

After a comeback album released the year after, the band went on to play to audiences bigger than they ever could have been originally. It was a textbook case of a band being more influential in death than they were in life, and their comeback tour took in playing to over 33’000 fans at Germany’s Wacken Festival that same year. Since then the band left their original home at Relapse to join up with Nuclear Blast, they’re still touring like there’s no tomorrow and creating new music despite some line-up troubles. They’re an inspiration to any heavy metal fan around, and come highly recommended.

Live reviews

Plenty of metal bands talk the talk; Dimmu Borgir, though, most definitely walk the walk. They’ve spent over twenty years now delighting and terrifying their audiences in equal measure, and as you’d expect from a band with albums called, amongst other things, Godless Savage Garden, Puritanical Euphoric Misanthropia and Death Cult Armageddon, the word ‘compromise’ has never been in their vocabulary. Whilst their sound has evolved over the years, they’ve usually focused on symphonic black metal, blending the typical ear-shredding volume and unrelenting heaviness of black metal in general with an atmosphere and ambience that provides a counterbalance to the morbid lyrical themes with which they concern themselves. The release of their most recent record, Abrahadabra, in 2010 saw a first for the Norwegian trio; they performed live with a full symphony orchestra in their native Oslo. They took a more conventional Dimmu Borgir show on the road, too, with their most recent UK tour, in late 2011, billed - with tongue perhaps in cheek - as An Evening with Dimmu Borgir. Giving fans a choice of three classic records - For All Tid, Stormblast and Enthrone Darkness Triumphant - they played two sets in intimate venues; one of those records in its entirety, and then a greatest hits selection. A new Borgir record is now overdue - expect news of both that and further UK dates soon, after a recent return to the festival circuit.

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Joeg_67

Starting up back in the days when death metal was only a recent phenomenon, Suffocation could be seen as one of the forefathers of the genre, starting their band in 1988. Based in New York, the group were influenced by the sounds of early death metal bands such as Napalm Death, and have since created a sound that is extreme and hardcore. In 2012, they were inducted into the Long Island Music Hall of Fame for their services to music, a great achievement for a band in such a niche category. Suffocation appeared at the Stafford Palace Theatre in early August 2014, a venue that only has a capacity of 400, making for very sweaty and painful experience for most of the crowd who were naturally jumping around everywhere. The song ‘Thrones Of Blood’, which was arguably the performance of the night, involves a lot of tempo changing and headbanging throughout, with incredible bass blasting out through the speakers. One of the attributes of Suffocation I can’t help but admire is their ability to keep their timing while changing riffs every few minutes in order to progress the song further. Frank Mullen, who along with Terrance Hobbs are the only original members remaining, was his usual dark self on the vocals, but also seemed like a thoroughly nice chap between the songs. Despite technical difficulties during the set, Suffocation didn’t let that phase them and continued to rock out to the extreme. The tune ‘As Grace Descends’ was also a fan favourite, with Derek Boyer doing his best to upstage everyone by playing a majority of the song on his knees. The fact that Frank is a natural born performer is one of the main reasons why the gig was so entertaining, but also due to the sheer energy that death metal brings , you’re unlikely to see another gig like it outside the genre.

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