Suffocation
Despise The Sun

THE REVIEW

“How many songs, did you say?”
“Five.”
“Only five?”
“Yes, but trust me, they kick ass!”
“Okay, but five songs are a bit few; I'll think about it.”
Half an hour later, I was at my trusty record store, at the counter, with “Despise The Sun” in hand, freshly purchased.
After a speedy bike ride to get home as quickly as possible, during which I caused five traffic accidents, punctured a tire, and ran over six passersby, including three elderly ladies, I was in my room, headphones on my ears and the new purchase in the stereo, cranked up to full volume.

“Damn, it lasts just over a quarter of an hour, let's hope I've spent these 10€ wisely” (I remember the money was earned by washing dishes daily, sweeping the floor, cleaning windows, and polishing furniture).
Fifteen minutes of pure sound deviancy, performed by the leading figures of Brutal: “Despise The Sun”, 1997, the EP successor to the terrifying absolute masterpiece “Pierced From Within”, sees Suffocation, undisputed masters of brutal art, dealing with a new, unexpected lineup change that had left fans skeptical about the future and existence of the band itself, who found themselves facing an unpleasant situation similar to that of about three years earlier, with the departure of black drummer Mike Smith.
Regarding the replacement to be made, Suffocation once again proved to be a band above the rest: while other Death Metal bands of the time were busy recruiting drummers whose only strong point was being real double bass drum acrobats, Suffocation skillfully avoided this by recruiting yet another jazzy drummer, this time the incredible Dave Culross (probably, given the origin of the surname, he sat on something too hot causing redness of his behind, ha ha ha) who took the band even further than heard (drumming-wise) on the monstrous predecessor, where the equally talented Doug Bohn played.

The record is phenomenal, as one would expect from every album by the five (who have never, and I emphasize NEVER, missed a beat in almost fifteen years of career), with a significant emphasis on speed, higher than heard in the past, and on the fact of not performing a single guitar solo throughout the entire record, except for the closing “Catatonia”, where Terrance Hobbs shows us what he's made of.
It’s incredible how the record doesn't show the slightest lapse in all its sixteen minutes of duration: a rage unleashed by various elements, like the drumming speed of the aforementioned Dave, which together with the meticulous riffing of the phenomenal bassist Chris Richards (the best in the Brutal field and not only, in my opinion) is comparable to a food processor. Always superlative is the performance of the Hobbs-Cerrito axes, delivering incredibly intricate and borderline genius riffs with surgical precision, overshadowed by the sepulchral voice of Frank Mullen, who this time has shaved his hair off (mmmh... visit to the trichologist? No, come on, you rule Frankie!).
Ingenious, killer, technical like few others have managed to do, “Despise The Sun” finds its strengths in the five incredible songs it contains, composed and arranged by a band that, in terms of genius, seems head and shoulders above all others and continues to churn out music like few others out there have managed to do in the last decade.