Suicide Silence
The Cleansing

THE REVIEW

Once there were Korn, Deftones, Limp Bizkit. Then came System of A Down, Slipknot, Avenged Sevenfold, and maybe even Killswitch Engage, As I Lay Dying, Shadows Fall. Today, there are Suicide Silence, and (also) thanks to them, what no one would have bet on a decade ago has come true: Death Metal has become a mainstream genre. Whether you call it Grind, Deathcore, BrOOtal, or whatever, it hardly matters. What unfortunately counts is that it, the most incorruptible and genuine genre of all our favorite music, has become in just a few years a clumsy parody of itself. And this "The Cleansing," released in 2007 by the powerful Century Media, along with the other famous "Doom" by "cousins" Job For a Cowboy, is perhaps the most representative album of this new musical trend, and as such, it fully represents all its strengths (few) and weaknesses (many).

Let's start with the strengths: killer production, a couple of above-average lyrics ("Unanswered"), and a voice that is nothing short of exceptional. Weaknesses: boring, repetitive, musically lacking, and zero inventiveness from a songwriting standpoint. "Bludgeoned to Death," "No Pity for A Coward," "The Price of Beauty," all songs with a surely devastating impact but which already tire the attentive ear by the second listen, not surprising from a technical viewpoint, recalling a genre where everything has been said and done for quite some time. But if you were born after 1995 and have no idea who Suffocation, Carcass, Death, and Morbid Angel are, and what matters to you is a good dose of Mosh and that's it, here you'll find what you're looking for: intro, verse, breakdown, slowdown, breakdown, solo, breakdown. Nothing more.

In conclusion, I just say that "The Cleansing" was the best-selling debut album in the history of Century Media while I read that Cephalic Carnage with "Misled by Certainty" entered the charts as "Best New Artist" for selling like 1300 copies (their first album, "Conforming to Abnormality" came out in 1998). If this isn't enough for you, you're in bad shape.