SUFFOCATION "Pinnacle Of Bedlam"

Dave Culross is back in the game from a very long hiatus, he played on the EP "Despise The Sun" in 1998. Since then he´s mostly been bashing the drums in Malevolent Creation. His comeback behind the drumkit is very exciting and I was eager to hear him. I wasn´t that surprised when I heard the result ´cause he´s been the (technical) blastmaster no.1 in MC, and he still is, I will not compare his drummingstyle to Mike Smith´s but Dave is king of both feet and hands. His feet are incredible at playin´ those bassdrums. When listening to this record, I got a feeling that Dave injects some new blood to this band. Mike Smith was one hell of a good drummer, but sometimes a change is needed to get the engine running. I got all the trademark Suffocation stuff here, but this time with songs you really remember afterwards. And since I am a sucker for good death metal drummers and  riffs that really kill this one makes me so happy(well, not happy but hungry for a moshpit and furious, that is happy in my world) Frank Mullen who has retired from full-time touring does a good job with his deep grunts and he hasn´t lost any of his power lately, I think his voice has become better by age since you can hear most of the words if you listen carefully. You can also hear some thrash riffs on this record, and some really great guitarplaying by Terrance Hobbs and Guy Marchais. The guitarplaying is flawlessly performed and I think this is one of the better ones they have released when it comes to solos. If you have the slightest idea of Suffocation and you think that my review was a bit blurry(I am tired today) I think you should just give it a listen or two and you´ll be convinced that this is a great one. Though I needed two or three listens before it grabbed me. If you like dirty productions you´ll be a bit disappointed, ´cause this is quite slick and clear. I don´t care so much since you can change your equalizers, and I am not what you could call a "sound fascist", I mostly adapt to the conditions given. The only thing I demand is that it´s not sounding like a shitty demo recording from 1984. That is not my style. But this is great as I have already told you guys and girls. Go and grab it and turn it up loud.

8,5/10