Genre : Deathcore, Death metal
Released : February 14th, 2020
Label : Nuclear Blast Records
FFO : All Shall Perish, Suffocation, Carnifex
Suicide Silence was the band that got me into more extreme subgenres of metal, specifically deathcore.
I was a huge fan of these guys back in the day and even though I don't listen to them as much as I used to, I still have a lot of love and respect for them and they will always be a very important band for me in regards to my musical journey.
So needless to say I was quite disappointed by the release of their extremely controversial self titled album.
However, on "Become the Hunter", the band comes back to their roots, with a will to show everyone they still have what it takes and more, to be Suicide Silence.
This was a tricky album to make for the band.
They had to earn back the trust and respect of a major part of their fanbase as well as the metal community as a whole. This meant playing it safe and dropping the previous direction they had taken with their experimentation and making a record that would satisfy the expectations of Suicide Silence fans while still sounding fresh and not "déjà vu".
And I feel like the band has pretty much successfully passed this difficult challenge here on this record.
Is it the most refreshing and creative recent deathcore album? No, and it can even feel a bit redundant at times (especially lyrically speaking).
However it does see the band deliver some of their best performances up until now (the vocals are incredible throughout the record) and sounding like the classic Suicide Silence we all fell in love with ("Death's Anxiety" sounds like a mixture between something you could find on "The Black Crown" and "No Time to Bleed") while still maintaining a degree of experimentation to their sound.
The band experiments with different sounds here and there throughout the record without it being overbearing or sounding forced, for instance the sitar (?) accompanied by an acoustic guitar on the intro to "Serene Obscene" or the use of wah pedals on the intro to "Disaster Valley" and of course the really cool atmospheric instrumental intro to the album).
Now and then, the band almost sound like a slamming death metal act ("Become the Hunter"/"Love Me to Death" intro) which was quite a delightfully face-melting surprise!
Overall, despite it not being the most groundbreaking deathcore album of the year, "Become the Hunter" is a banger that sees Suicide Silence restored to their former glory and is a necessary step towards the evolution of the band, which can only (I sincerely hope) lead them to even greater things from now on!
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