1"Blood Oath" – 3:56
2"Dismal Dream" – 3:18
3"Pray for Forgiveness" – 3:41
4"Images of Purgatory" – 3:28
5"Cataclysmic Purification" – 4:55
6"Mental Hemorrhage" – 3:56
7"Come Hell or High Priest" – 4:08
8"Undeserving" – 4:11
9"Provoking the Disturbed" – 5:20
10"Marital Decimation" – 4:17
11"Pray for Forgiveness" - instrumental version
Almost everybody knows that Suffocation is the supporting element of the brutal death metal music. This is their sixth record and third after the reunion in 2002. I have to confess that I have predicted and expected only Suffocation typical tunes with some little suprises somewhere in between. I was right !
The main concept of this listenable record called "Blood Oath" is strategic, because it is in the essence the selfstealing. But its naturally. Philosophy is clear ! It is about two points. Try to use the best from own past materials and add something other but it have to sound similar because fans like it this way. And then do not the lose the trademark of the past originality.If you have listened their first record "Effigy of the Forgotten" from 1991, you know that i mean with word "selfstealing" on this and previous afterreunion records. They were probably first who presented low pitched death growls featuring vocalist Frank Mullen, jazz influenced guitar solos (but in different subgenre as their mates from Atheist or Cynic in that times ), and their drummer Mike Smith is considered as the inventor of fast drum "blast beat" technique called "Suffo-blast".
They have inspired hordes of death metal, grindcore and deathcore bands and they still reject the meaning of changing their music in experimental way.
"Blood Oath" offers traditional song structures with technical rhythms, typical lyrical themes and they did not deflected far from previous stuff. The main place where they are focused their attention album by album is the production and precise mixing of the album. Their oldest albums suffers with weak and terrible recording (bands Death, Atheist, Cynic, Cryptopsy and many more had the same problem).
"Marital Decimation" from album "Breeding The Spawn" were recorded again because of this reason. More editions of "Blood Oath" contains instrumental version of "Pray for Forgiveness".
In my opinion songs like "Blood Oath", "Pray for Forgiveness", "Come Hell or High Priest" or "Cataclysmic Purification" and others are evidence of fact that also from selfstealing can man create the decent songs. I still appreciate the guitar work of Terrance Hobbs (solos in "Blood Oath", "Provoking the Disturbed" ). His guitar solos are absolutely stunning where you can hear the pure jazz roots. Of course Mike Smith did another great job on drums there. The most memorable for me were after first listening the intro of "Pray for Forgiveness" and "Blood Oath". These two mentioned talented afro-americans created what Suffocation makes SUFFOCATION. If you are dissapointed with this album you have to understand that some bands do not need to change their musical image. And if they are remaining the same that does not mean that they are boring only not very original in a sense.
rating: 8/10
Enjoy the interview on youtube link with vocalist Frank
