Artist: Suicide Silence
Album: No Time To Bleed
Genre: Deathcore
Label: Century Media

Suicide Silence is one of those bands that seemed to blow up out of nowhere. Hailing from the deathcore genre, which is mainly unmarketable to 90% of the world, the group’s last release, The Cleansing was praised the world over for it’s relentless assault of chugs, violent lyrics, and all around dark atmosphere. The group have been at the top of their scene for over a year now and it’s time for the all important follow up release. Unfortunately for Suicide Silence, the bar has been set extremely high and I’m not sure their new album, No Time To Bleed will live up to the hype with fans.

The group busts out the gates with the pummeling and basically introduction track, “Wake Up.” It’s fast, loud, and growl filled. Sound similar to the last record? Exactly. However “Lifted” does begin on a more mellow then epic note, but it quickly becomes another drum pounding and redundant track filled with heartless lyrics and profanities inserted for no reason other than to fill a line. I’m all for the chug and “slow and low” style bands, but come on, give me more. We’re two tracks in and nothing new has shown itself.

As the record moves on, the title track as well as a few others [like “Suffer” and “Genocide”] have some solid chugs and guitar licks, but it all just blends together into a near unending barrage of blast beats and bass drops. There is a lyrical moment of genius on “Suffer” where they reference The Cleansing and claim it has begun and it’s time to move on. This is suppose to represent a change from religious and political lyrical themes to more personal ones, but really, it’s just growls with pointless profane statements and ridiculously meticulous production. How many vocal layers do you need when you scream? 3? 4? One is enough.

The group does give us some artistic work on “…And She Bled” which is basically some harrowing interlude meant to build up the gloomy atmosphere. It works on some levels, but doesn’t really flow with the record overall. Also, the closer, “Disengage” has soem truly compelling guitar work, but I’m afraid it comes a bit too late to be a savior to this redundant record.

I’m not going to claim to be the most knowledgeable person on the world of Deathcore. I’ve done some research and listened to a few acts, but I’m not the historian on the genre by any means. However, I know music and music listeners quite well and to keep the listeners, you need to expand. You can only ride a one trick pony for so long before its legs give out. Where their debut was pummeling and brutal, No Time To Bleed fails to do much more than showcase vocal layers, low tuning, and heavy production work. The lyrics are hit and miss and the overall attempts at being this dark, violent acts just feel forced. The guitar shines when solos arise, but the majority is just accent chugs over quick drumming. Come on guys, EVOLVE!

Score: 5/10

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James Shotwell

James Shotwell is the founder of Under The Gun Review. He loves writing about music and movies almost as much as he loves his two fat cats. He's also the co-founder of Antique Records and the Marketing Coordinator for Haulix. You should probably follow him on Twitter.

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