SUFFOCATION
Still Breathing
By: Albert Mudrian
Photo: David Ungar
Bored to tears by mediocre death metal? Blame Suffocation. You could argue that Long Island based-quartet was largely responsible for death metal’s well-documented creative collapse in the mid 1990s. For countless death metal hopefuls at the decade’s onset, Suffocation’s airtight groove attack, jackhammer beats and subterranean vocal barrage were an almost singular source of inspiration.
“They popped out and flooded the scene,” says Suffocation guitarist and co-founder Terrance Hobbs of the band’s many less imaginative admirers. “That’s kinda flattering that they were trying to imitate what we were doing back then but I think that most of the people missed the point of what we were doing. Things started to get saturated with so much death metal and that’s okay but it was hard for a lot of bands to stand out amongst the crowd. Attendance when down at shows, there were problems booking and things just got rocky.”
By the time Suffocation released their sophomore album, Pierced From Within, in 1995, the death metal deluge had clearly eroded much of the underground scene’s popularity. Further complicating matters, the band, like so many other death metal outfits at the time, was dropped from longtime label Roadrunner and immediately endured a string of lineup changes.
“We were having lots of battles within the band and everything just started going south from there.” Hobbs explains. “We realized that things were getting slower in the scene and Suffocation didn’t really know where its niche was at that time. We didn’t know how it was gonna turn out. We were getting a little bit older and people have jobs and lives. We didn’t know if we were gonna survive and if the scene was gonna die ultimately. So we thought we should make a really good straightforward death metal EP because we were self-financing at that time. And we did Despise the Sun at the time with Vulture, which happened to be our manager [Jason Fligman]. He wanted to open up his own little independent record label. And I don’t think that it really got out to the people as much as it needed to.
After Despise the Sun was released Suffocation carried on for a few more months before the group drew what appeared to be their last breath in the spring of 1998. The band’s members went their separate ways—some of them marrying, starting families and generally settling in to civilian living. But only a few years after the act’s demise, former vocalist Frank Mullen began contacting ex-Suffocation members with the intention of resurrecting the band. Founding drummer Mike Smith, who originally exited the group at the end of 1993, was one the first people Mullen called.
“It was always in the back of my mind,” says Smith regarding a Suffocation reunion. “The thing was I didn’t know if all of our personalities could really make it come out successfully. And when Frank had the idea to put this back together, it just seemed right. We didn’t think we couldn’t do it anymore. We were all just assuming that no one else wanted to so none of us ever asked each other. It turned out that we all had the same desires, it was just a matter of actually expressing them. And the day that Frank asked, it just started a whole whirlwind.”
In November 2002, Mullen, Hobbs and Smith officially resuscitated Suffocation, joining forces with guitarist Guy Marchais and bassist Josh Barohn. Taking the better part of a year to weigh various offers, the band eventually signed a deal with Relapse, the label that released their debut Human Waste EP over a dozen years ago.
“Now the atmosphere is so much better coming back into it fresh and we can just continue to make music the way that we know how to make it,” says the guitarist. “Now things are looking in a much brighter light for us and we’re hoping that we’ll be able to keep our fans and keep them pleased and maybe make new fans.
“But we’re still gonna be the same Suffocation that everybody knew as far as musical textures and qualities and brutality—that’s what we’re intending to keep right now,” he stresses. “Our integrity is the most important thing for us and we don’t ever want to hear a fan say, ‘Oh, Suffocation, they’re just trying to get a buck, that’s the only reason they’re coming back around.’ It’s not about that. It’s that people originally wanted to see us and listen to us because of what we were doing then and our integrity hasn’t changed over the last 13 years.”
They’ll get the opportunity to prove it when Souls to Deny, their first full-length LP in nearly a decade, is released in April of 2004 via Relapse. Currently ensconced in the studio finishing the recording of Souls to Deny, Suffocation are also serving as the record’s producers and engineers—not leaving a single note to chance.
“We have to turn around and make a brutal, good sounding record. In all the years we’ve only gotten better,” Hobbs explains. “Our bass player was our soundman for five years so he’s grown a lot more and we’ve learned a lot more about sound and techniques so we’re gonna bring that next level that we’re aiming for out to the people. Ultimately now we know what we’re doing and we can’t wait to get into the studio and record our new record and come out and just try to support the scene as much as we can’t. I don’t think that people will be disappointed at all with what we’re gonna do.”
“We can’t wait to get it out there because it’s common knowledge that for bands that reunite and try to come back, it doesn’t usually work out,” offers Smith. “I can positively tell you that the fans are really gonna understand that it’s a whole new day. We’re stronger than we were back then because we needed that time off to reestablish that love we always had for it. And because of that, the music hasn’t suffered one bit—I guarantee it.”
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