Don't Turn These Up To 11, Part 4: Death Metal

February 10, 2012

. . .

Death is the end, and so in this series’ finale, we’ll find out what happens when death metal’s brutal and technical side is robbed of power.

1. Suffocation – Breeding the Spawn
Spawn is so murky and flat that it’s difficult to hear what is going on. It’s so bad that it’s nearly lo-fi. If pressed, I couldn’t even tell someone if the songs were good based on the original album. Sometimes the drums are swallowed up by the guitars, and sometimes they overpower everything else. Suffocation later re-recorded four of the songs on later albums: “Breeding the Spawn”, “Prelude to Repulsion”, “Anomalistic Offerings”, and “Marital Decimation”. To sum it up: this album is a fucking tragedy because of the recording.

Death metal can adapt to various production styles and budgets. Unless we’re talking about technical death, clarity is optional, but wimpy production is inexcusable. What’s the cause of this mess? Roadrunner Records decided to be cheap, preventing the band from going to Morrisound and forcing Suffocation to use a lesser studio. Malevolent Creation’s Stillborn suffered the same treatment. One final point: Breeding the Spawn is apparently unsalvageable, because Roadrunner had Effigy of the Forgotten digitally remastered, but Spawn has not received any such treatment. Or perhaps Roadrunner hasn’t learned yet?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KGsVXzQkpUk

Suffocation – “Marital Decimation” (Breeding the Spawn)

VS.

Suffocation – “Marital Decimation” (Blood Oath)

. . .

2. Cryptopsy – Blasphemy Made Flesh
Everything about this album’s recording is wrong. The guitars are a sheet of noise, obscuring the riffing. The drums are awful. The snare is clangy and metallic, and the rest of the kit is muted. There are numerous times when Lord Worm’s vocals are mixed too high. The mix is so flat that the guitars and drums run together, and the bass drums are lost. None So Vile didn’t sound good, but at least it communicated what the band was doing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W6MYNceWgzc

Cryptopsy – “Defenestration” (Blasphemy Made Flesh)

VS.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4jkW92LGFSY

Cryptopsy – “Defenestration” (None So Live)

. . .

3. Krisiun – Ageless Venomous
This is another album that was widely criticized upon release for its bad production. Credit where credit’s due: I’ve never heard a mix that so perfectly conveyed what the guitars and drums were doing. You can literally hear every little nuance. The bass is buried behind the guitars, but that’s so common in metal that it doesn’t matter. Clarity is important for a band like Krisiun, but they also need enough fuzz or mud in the sound to stay heavy. Ageless is too clean and not at all heavy.

The issue here is the guitar and drum tone. The guitar has no attack. The tone is buttery smooth. Ageless‘ guitars don’t chug-chug-chug, they ug-ug-ug. Seriously. I don’t know of another album that has similar guitar tone.

The drums deserve the most criticism. The kick drums have the worst clickety-click sound I’ve ever heard. They have no bass presence, and are mixed loudly enough that they cannot be ignored. As for the rest of the kit, sometimes it sounds like Max Kolesne was playing on one of those awful ’80s synth drum kits with the hexagonal pads. Other times, it sounds like he was playing the drums with his hands rather than with drum sticks.

Funky instrumental tone and squeaky clean mixing conspired to bring this album down.