Suicide Silence - The Black Crown (2011)
On this album, which is very unfortunately their last with vocalist Mitch Lucker due to a fatal motorcycle accident just a year later, Suicide Silence find themselves experimenting with more than just your standard shit-something-out-and-watch-them-all-mosh deathcore which they had been pretty much exclusively known for, with them sticking their big toes into the murky, muddy and Mountain Dew infested waters known as nu-metal (Korn's vocalist Jonathan Davis, the poster-child for nu-metal, even makes an appearance in "Witness the Addiction") but thankfully only in the form of its catchiness, and not any weird "I've never actually listened to hip-hop before" white boy rapping with scritchy-scratchy turntables turning the tables on their fanbase in the background, and they actually managed to hop on the "You Only Live Once" train before Drake ever even got the chance! Oh boy, he sure was brave to go against his musical rivals by stealing their song title!! What next, their breakdowns?! How is Quentin Miller going to cook one of those up?! Ah, I digress (I used to think the term was "I die to rest", feel free to steal THAT for your deathcore song!!) because these songs are all pretty fucking cool.
This album is packed with memorable songs for the Suicide Silence catalog (be sure to check then out playing in the parking lot of your local Ikea soon) for you to purchase with your little whore-earned monies. Those first five songs? Great! "Slaves to Substance" is a great opener with some great riffs that immediately beat the shit out of you, "O.C.D." is a catchy one with an unintentionally hilarious cymbal being hit in the chorus, even if it seems like Mitch Lucker completely mistook obsessive compulsive disorder for being schizophrenia ("I CAN'T SLEEP, TOO MANY VOICES TRY TO TALK TO ME"), "Human Violence" would have tr00 metalheads foaming at the fucking mouth if it was put out by an obscure grindcore band, "You Only Live Once" has an instantly memorable guitar riff and almost eerie lyrics given all that's happened, and "Fuck Everything" has a great, slowly trudging feeling to it that sounds like it must have the crowd pissing their Powerades out during the heavy "IF YOU HATE THE WORLD AND HATE WHAT YOU SEE, THEN SAY THIS WITH ME: FUCK EVERYTHING" ending of it. I know it's got ME shaking in my booties!!
As for the rest of the album, it's groovier than any of the albums before it because it has, get this, some CATCHY riffs! It's no longer "MAKE A SHITLOAD OF NOISE" riffs!! The album is also notable because of the fact that it occasionally features guest vocalists (Frank Mullen from Suffocation was a great addition, even if a bit underused) to do little deathcore ragtime dandies with Mitch "Shine On, Swoosh-Hair Boy" Lucker in the kitchen of a 1950s diner while he and whatever guest vocalist do a synchronized dance and spray each other with the sink-hoses while having a grand ol' time with the gang, with "Cross-Eyed Catastrophe" being the deathcore equivalent of the "tough guy opens up and sings with girl" because it features Alexia Rodriguez of Eyes Set to Kill. Okay, jokes aside, these songs genuinely rip in a way that you wouldn't really expect from their previous releases. They're catchy, heavy, and even though Mitch Lucker doesn't do gutturals as much as I'd like him to on this album, he sounds pretty fuckin' good, but hey, fortunately enough, so do the songs! Good production, especially on the drums. Really makes the songs sound crisp for deathcore.
Unfortunately, since Mitch Lucker passed a year after this album was made, we'll never know what a new Suicide Silence album would've sounded like with him on the vocals, but he made a great album to go out on. Rest easy, Mitch. You did good.
"YOU ONLY LIVE ONCE SO JUST GO FUCKING NUTS!! LIVE LIFE HARD!!!"
8/10
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Feel free to check out the song previews/buy this album using my Amazon Associate link!
