Band:	Suffocation
Album:	Souls To Deny
Style:	Brutal death metal
Release date:	2004
A review by:	Herzebeth

01. Deceit
02. To Weep Once More
03. Souls To Deny
04. Surgery Of Impalement
05. Demise Of The Clone
06. Subconsciously Enslaved
07. Immortally Condemned
08. Tomes Of Acrimony

Well I declare myself a Suffocation fan, in fact a Huge fan, I love mostly every song, album, etc. The song I love the most in metal music is "Infecting The Crypts" yes from Suffocation, Why am I saying this? Because this time I wasn't at all impressed by this album, it's very good yes, but as a fan I think is not as great as their older albums, and I was expecting much more. Anyway I am going to make a review not as a Suffocation fan, but as a Death Metal lover.

The album opener "Deceit" is a good song, incredible riffs, nice drums, fine bass-lines, it's a great song, but not exactly the best one, now the following track "To Weep Once More", I've heard a lot of people complaining about this song, "?dude this song sucks, not brutal, not gory, damn I hate it?" but I think the opposite way, this song is one of the best songs in "Souls To deny" yes it has zero gore, but man the lyrics finally are deep and thoughtful, the music is brutal yet experimental, this song was a huge risk for Suffocation, but it turned out just fine. The next track "Souls To Deny" opens with very cool sound effects (girls screaming, and one evil voice) but so much for that song, the song itself is repetitive and a little dull, yes the worst song in the album, the chorus is the ugliest chorus I've heard in metal history, the riffs are monotonous, etc.

It isn't until "Surgery Of Impalement" and "Demise Of The Clone" when this album comes into a great shape, this two tracks are overwhelming, Brutal as hell, we can again hear those fast intros that Suffocation used to play, we can hear gore again but in a different way, yes the lyrics talk about gore and that bloody dripping stuff, but the lyrics have deeper thoughts, deeper meaning, "To dominate a felid of iniquity undeserving of many..." anyway I think this is the first time I hear Suffocation using words such as "iniquity", so the best tracks in this album are those two mentioned, fast, brutal, violent tracks, but with Suffocation new twists(Warning: Those "new" twists, might sound spectacular for some, but awful for others)

The production is perfectly clean, the instruments sound incredible, and the vocals sound perfect also (too bad the vocals aren't as guttural as in older albums) the mixing and mastering is incredible (thanks to Protools obviously), The artwork is incredible (as every Suffocation album) not many pictures but great drawings and shit. So anyway this album is fabulous for those who haven't heard Suffocation earlier work; and for those who have the album itself (without comparing it to Effigy... and Pierced...) is amazing, very good structured, and with awesome musicians (minus Doug Cerrito), a great album that must be heard by every metal head (either for the quality, or for the album significance, you know, the Suffocation come back and shit) so I recommend this album, just not highly.