Suicide Silence – Suicide Silence

There are Tibetan monks living on top of mountains in total silence who will have heard the winds of Storm Doris coming through, by which I don’t mean the gusty weather we’ve been getting in the UK. No, Suicide Silence have a new album, and my God have they pissed people off.

Before we even touch on the music, it’s worth saying that if you signed a petition asking for Suicide Silence not to release this work, then you are officially a pillock. Fuck off and think about what you’ve done. You can come back when you’ve grown up enough to be allowed to have a conversation with the big boys and girls.

Now, let’s talk about the music. Suicide Silence is a weird-ass album. So weird that I’m not entirely sure what to say about it. It’s like the band have taken their sound twisted it up, dropped it in a blender, stabbed it a couple of times, thrown a copy of White Pony in there and then hit blend. Some moments sound like Suicide Silence but they are coming at you through the haze of this mental experiment, and before you can recognise them they are punching you in the face.

Take, ‘Hold Me Up, Hold Me Down’ a bizarre cacophony of noise that at times barely resembles a song. Eddie Hermida’s wailed vocals sound genuinely pained, and I’m still not exactly sure what they are going for. It’s noise, and there is nothing for the average listener to grab hold of and zone in on. It’s a messy and incoherent listen, and you can see why long-term fans have been left scratching their heads.

And yet, I kind of like it. Which is only partly because everyone else hates it. I listened to Suicide Silence after all the kerfuffle, so I knew what the reaction had been, and like many people the second I see something getting a kicking I kind of want to defend it. Even as I admit that parts of this are pretty shit – ‘Doris’ will never do it for me and ‘Don’t Be Careful You Might Hurt Yourself’ is an uncomfortable place to spend time – I still want to be team Suicide Silence. I want to applaud them for having the balls to do this in the first place.

A decision that should really be the main topic of conversation right now. Forget the internet’s whining. Suicide Silence could have churned out another group of Suicide Silence style songs, and people would have lapped it up. Their career has been on a constant upward trajectory, and a good but straightforward album could have pushed them into the big time. Instead, they’ve fucked it all up. Except they did it with a big old shit eating grin on their faces. This is the sound of a band who are unafraid to take risks, and I love that.

Is Suicide Silence a good album? No, probably not. It’s a mess quite frankly and feels like the debut release of a band still not quite sure what they are supposed to be. However, there’s nothing to stop this becoming something special. Metal, punk, hardcore and all of those lovely things are about fucking with the rules, and that’s exactly what Suicide Silence have done. I can’t help but feel like they are on the brink of finding something amazing. Call it blind optimism, but I’m predicting that after another year or two honing this sound: we’ll all be pretending we danced in the rain of Storm Doris.