Suffering is a black/Doom metal band from West Midlands, UK and they have dropped their album "11"!
First off we have "Shanshu" which after some googling means "Morality books" in Chinese seems to be a reference to morality and positive and negative, The track starts off with with cymbal/gong crashing getting louder and louder and eerie silence in between thus reinforcing the Chinese vibe then kicks into aggressive riff accompanied by pained screams and shredding.
The groove of this track is here and blends will with the tremolo picking sections the mix is not fantastic but it does add that lo-fi element that black metal thrives in. Second track is "Releasing the Eleven" unsure what that it means but the song starts off with open strums and and cymbal crashes and is thrown into the chaos with a groovy melodic riff accompanied by pained bm vocals, this song is reminding me of Celtic frost but has its own vibe.
The pace of the track is interrupted with a awesome creepy breakdown of the riff slow and painful sounding very sinister but i felt it overstayed its welcome after a while.
Third track is "Diary of a Street Walker" this opens to clean guitars and cellos? creating a sinister atmosphere and a creepy as fuck growl wailing to join the main riff which does gets repetitive after a 2 mins but does evolve into a depressed sounding riff accompanied again by painful vocals creating a sinister tone once again transitioning into depressed sounding tremolo and wailing and a odd sounding solo.
This track is difficult to listen to in all the right ways.
Track four "The Eternal Dance" after that last track i need some cheering up well fuck me right? the energy is pumped back into with some DSBM style reminding me of coldworld making me sad again..this song is my favorite so far and has some very interesting riffs and structures this song is run of the mill DSBM but its got the "suffering" mark on it so it stands out, The vocals are so painful and depressing it adds so much bitterness and pain, I love it!
Track five "Conjuration Through Black Horns" well at this point I am all in the abyss and this track delves further into it with a sad sounding clean guitar section also sounding not quite right at moments unnerving me soon accompanied with strums of distortion the background and kicks back in with a odd and scary sounding guitar small shreds with aggressive vocals growling at you to soon kick into a groove and atmosphere i expect from these guys at this point i am a getting Carpathian forest feel especially in the vocals.
Track six "Deviant Women of the Barren Plains" The clean guitar at the start sounds more positive so it was a surprise but had a element of worry in it in occasionally this set the mood for the track and soon kicks in to a awesome section of a slow and doomy riffs and drumming but does not take long for the tremeloes spelling black doom onto me and barraging my ears and kicking into some solid groove! and awesome riffs accompanied by a lower scream vocal and ends on a doomy open strum section transitioning into a fierce riffage to end!
Track seven "The Cult of Lilim" This one had some serious energy and i would say live this would be a instant headbanger/pit track slows down to doomynes and opens to a awesome sounding solo with some great atmosphere behind it supported by the rhythm definitely one of the strongest tracks on the album.
Final track "Rebirth Through Cursed Dirt" AT 14 MINUTES! i am about to go on a journey! The tone is set well with atmospheres led with a clean riff that dirges up bit time this track is easily the most creepy so far with painful screams from the depths of pain with weird scaling guitars and laughing and drums repeating the same hit making feel like this is a ritual and i am the sacrifice.......But soon kicks back into the riff like nothing happened few mins later of wailing and riffs it ends back on that cymbal from the first track.
Overview: Depressing. This album is intense, unnerving and depressing.... if the listener is not suicidal before they will be after listening to this, i am probably going to need meds after that. It was a intense and emotive experience that i can't wait to see live! There were negatives like production would help with the atmosphere, some parts went on longer than they needed to and the kick drums sounded a bit to thuddy etc but these are irrelevant if you love dark black metal which I happen to.
7.5/10