Suicide Silence-The Cleansing

Suicide Silence has become one of the most popular and mainstream bands in the deathcore genre. I myself am quite a fan of their music, owning both of their albums. The release of their self-titled EP really got their name out and got them on several tours. Their claim to fame is the album that I am going to talk about today. The Cleansing has introduced so many people to death metal. In an interview, one of the members said that they are “going to stay true to death metal, and not branch out away from [their] core metal sound”. My hopes are that this band stays around for a long time, keeping the spirit of metal alive.

There are a few downsides to their music, which is what I would like to talk about first. Mitch Lucker’s vocals are edited a little, because in the high quality live recordings/videos that I’ve heard, his screams are not quite as good as they are in the studio recordings. I personally like the vocals to be at least 93% pure and unedited. Another downside is that the guitar and bass parts aren’t really as creative as they should. I honestly believe that the guitarists and bassist are capable of creating a much more creative sound than what they did here. I can tell that their parts are very simple, most of the songs consisting of three to five basic notes. My favorite part of this band is their astonishing drummer. He does a lot of blast-beat drumming, which isn’t something I’m particularly a fan of, but he’s really good at it. His riffs and solos are purely amazing, and he is always on time and tight with the rest of the band. But I would like to say again, his parts are lacking a bit in the creativity part. My absolute favorite thing about their music is their extremely brutal breakdowns. A few of the breakdowns on this album are some of the best and most brutal I’ve ever heard. My favorite being on No Pity for a Coward. This album is definitely for fans of the most brutal music out there.

The most well known song from this album is without a doubt Unanswered. This song’s breakdowns and fast parts are extremely tight and unbelievably brutal. The one downside to this song is that it’s composed of only four notes. Bludgeoned to Death is honestly the most brutal song on The Cleansing. There is a breakdown in the middle of the song that is literally “melt your face off brutal”. One of the songs that I’m really not fond of is Hands of a Killer. The song’s intro is just really unappealing to me, and that same riff that’s played at the beginning is played pretty much throughout the whole song. I would say that the breakdown at the end is exceptional. No Pity for a Coward is best known for one thing, and that is the breakdown at the end of the song. They even made some of the lyrics from that breakdown into a shirt design. Eyes Sewn Shut is a song that is one of my favorite deathcore songs, but for some reason they have never played it live (that I know of). Green Monster is a political song talking about money (the green monster) consuming people and basically taking over them and “eating” them alive. Green Monster is one of the slower, more brutal songs. It’s also one of the longest (not counting the silence at the end of the track, I personally hate it when bands do that). For some odd reason, most people can’t really get the full message of this song, which is why I just spelled it out for you. My all time favorite song from this album is Girl of Glass. The blast beats are tight and creative, the song consists of more than four notes, and the lyrics really stand out to me.

Suicide Silence is known as one of the best and one of the most influential death metal bands in existence. Although they aren’t one of my favorite bands, I do think they are capable of doing a lot in the metal world. And for all you people that were thinking of commenting me saying that Suicide Silence is a “pussy emo band”, don’t, I personally am not someone that likes to get in the middle of that stuff, I consider Suicide Silence true deathcore, end of story. This album gets 17/20.