Metal is perhaps the only style of music where age is celebrated. Sure, you do have older musicians touring and drawing crowds late into life, but none have artists making vibrant, relevant music that resonates with their audiences. There’s no age limit to metal, and as the first crop of the pioneers get into their golden years, they prove they still have plenty to contribute to the scene.
Death metal veterans Suffer fit into that category, and while they might not be of Judas Priest age yet, they’ve been around and helped shape this sound into what it is. The band has been at it for more than three decades now, but they only have two full-length records to their name, the latest being the monstrous “Grand Canvas of the Aesthete.” They might not have the back catalog of a Carcass or Autopsy, but they sure as hell helped shape the sound, and this latest album, initially thought as a swan song, seems to have breathed new life back into the band—vocalist/guitarist C.R. Petit, and guitarists Daron Petit and Justin Aeschliman form the core, while bassist Jason Ellsworth and drummer Rene Gerbrandij round out the lineup for this record. It’s brutal, gory, and exploding with horrors and demons.
The opening title track is an eerie and strange burst, voices swirling as the playing thickens, creaky growls digging under fingernails. Muddy leads turns into a frenzy of guitars, punishing and trudging, the shrieks raining down, mauling to a slurry finish. “Ashened Frolic; the Exquisite Promenade” waylays with death, the growls crushing as leads tease, feeling sinewy and massively heavy. The guitars spread and sprawl as things get fluid and fiery, trudging through vile growls and splattering playing that feel like a battering ram. “Plentiful • Copious • Bountiful” dawns with melodic rage, violent growls loosening bone, the assault swaggering with violence and attitude. Snarls crawl through filth while the playing gets streamier, the blood choking and gurgling, the leads scorching and leaving burnt flesh behind. “Inhalent Caustic Foray” bruises immediately and things get ugly and massive, the growls savaging amid a cloud of dual leads. Howls curdle as the guitars heat up, trampling with reckless abandon, blazing to a smoking finish.
“The Fetching Cranley Gardens” is scary when it opens, feeling haunting as the track revisits gruesome murders from the late ’70 and early ’80s. Hulking terror pays the proper amount of fright, striking with ugly vocals, the leads going off and spiraling into the cosmos. Shrieks tell of the terror, the playing is pummeling and morbid, coming to a brutal end. “Carnal Flesh Parade” blasts with strangling growls, crushingly heavy riffs, and raspy fire. Leads swim in guts as things get fierce and bloodier, throaty howls carving bone, the playing leaving a blur behind. “Pernicious Precarious Mess” opens with the bass plodding, guitars piercing, and a thick humidity coating everything with a thick blanket of unease. The rot sets in as teeth sink into bone, the ferocity boiling over, violence stomping on prone bodies. The stench of decomposition rises and gags, dual leads leaving ash in their wake. Closer “Human Primal Cuts” drubs and scars, the leads simmering as the body of the song bludgeons. Meaty howls destroy as gargantuan pressure mounts, the howls ripping limb from limb, the jerky pace blasting to the end.
“Grand Canvas of the Aesthete” might have started as a potential end point, but Suffer dump so much malicious vision and devastating gore that it would be a shame to leave this much fuel in the tank. This is death metal from its disgusting veins, the roots long since given way to rot, yet this band still finds inspiration in that cesspool. This also is a really fun record, especially for those of us who basked in death metal’s stench for so long, giving another reason to be excited by this punishing style.
For more on the band, go here: https://www.facebook.com/SufferSD/
To buy the album (U.S.), go here: https://suffersd.bandcamp.com/album/grand-canvas-of-the-aesthete?label=2557202525&tab=music
Or here (International): https://wisebloodrecords.8merch.com/
For more on the label, go here: https://wisebloodrecords.com/
Meat Mead Metal 