REVIEW: SUICIDE SILENCE – “Remember… You Must Die!”

Full disclosure, Suicide Silence holds a special place in my heart, as it does for many a millennial core-head. For many, Suicide Silence was the gateway band into deathcore, fusing the DIY aesthetic of hardcore with the brutality of death metal. Many would say that Suicide Silence, along with Whitechapel, Chelsea Grin, Job For A Cowboy, etc. form the first wave of Deathcore, henceforth fondly called the Myspace era of the genre.

Suicide Silence has mostly enjoyed a celebrated catalog of records, other than the one glaring exception, their self-titled record, which garnered mixed to negative reviews and caused many to doubt whether Suicide Silence could cut it in this new age of hyper-competition in the scene. The successor to this record, and previous entry, Become the Hunter was a significant return to form and recuperated much of the band’s goodwill. Admittedly, I fell off the Suicide Silence wagon after my dismal reaction to their self-titled record and gave Become the Hunter only a passing glance. However, their newest record Remember… You Must Die! Pulled me right back in!

From the opening moments of the first track “You Must Die”, we are immediately thrown back to 2007 and their earliest demo, even before The Cleansing which is arguably the strongest debut record the genre has witnessed in a very long time. This record has several elements that would have been perfectly at home on The Cleansing. However, these elements have been juxtaposed with newer songwriting elements owing to the members evolving in the genre and maturing in their chops.

What is fascinating about Remember You Must Die is that the band has chosen to approach the songwriting and production process from a very “old school” approach. The music sounds raw and present. The entire record screams of a live recording setup with mic’d amps and drums with the entire band playing at a rehearsal space, rather than the more sterile studio approach that is stapled in metal in general, and in modern deathcore in particular. The guitar and bass tones are visceral and lean heavily on the personal performance of the musicians with a level of authenticity that can often be obfuscated behind layers of pristine producer magic. In this regard, Remember You Must Die! Suicide Silence may well be on its way to creating Old School Deathcore (OSDxC) much like the current prevalence of Old School Death Metal (OSDM) in the greater death metal scene. Bands like Tactosa and Tracheotomy have already jumped on the Myspace-era of deathcore, and this record can take its place as its king!

In fact, many riffs and arrangements, such as parts of “Fucked for Life” and “God Be Damned” could easily be mistaken for OSDM bands like Gatecreeper and Necrot, and for a “scene-kid” band like legacy Suicide Silence, this is an intriguing change of pace. Even the released single “Alter of Self”, which poses its own name pun, features a unique fusion of OSDM filth and deathcore chuggy goodness. The callout during the closing breakdown, with chants to “KNEEL… KNEEL… KNEEL” has evil that has rarely been manifested to this level on a Suicide Silence record.

The strongest tracks on this record and personal favorites, in addition to “God Be Damned”, include “Be Deceived” (the breakdown with pinch harmonics and the siren-esque whammy dive is probably the best breakdown on the entire record!) and the other released single “Dying Life”. Truthfully, the entire back half of Remember You Must Die is among the strongest seen in recent memory, especially in the age of exponentially decreasing attention spans where bands tend to frontload their hardest-hitting tracks. I mean you cannot seriously sit here and tell me that there wasn’t an unholy amalgamation of the Cleansing¬-era and The Black Dahlia Murder on “The Third Death”.

The album closer “Full Void” also toys with Phrygian-dominant clean runs and revisits the motif as the song progresses which is always a good idea! Call me a fanboy stan but is the songwriting on this record leaps and bounds better than anything we’ve seen this band put out till now? WOW!

The musicianship on Remember You Must Die is at the highest level seen by this since The Cleansing and No Time To Bleed set the standard for chuggy Drop A tuned deathcore in the early 2000s! Guitarists Mark Heylmun and Chris Garza are firing on all cylinders on this record. The riffs are menacing, and razor-sharp, yet feel surprisingly feel like something Suicide Silence would write. This record also features the greatest emphasis on guitar solos than ever seen before on any Suicide Silence record. While these solos are not trying to hit the virtuoso levels seen in bands like Lorna Shore and Shadow of Intent, they feel comfortably placed in this rawer iteration of deathcore songwriting. Altogether, this is high praise for songwriters: to write fresh yet familiar music. In an age of bands forever chasing the lowest tuning and the highest number of strings, to absurd results, it’s incredibly relieving to see the old favorite deathcore seven-string tuning paying out such heavy dividends! New drummer Ernie Iniguez makes a blazing debut into the songwriting process on this record. While the scene will sorely miss the stompy heavy-handedness of ex-drummer Alex Lopez, I daresay that the new guy suits the OSDxC (yes, I am making this a new term!) aesthetic better.

Vocalist Eddie Hermida (ex-All Shall Perish) unfortunately continues to be the weakest link in the Suicide Silence. This feels particularly stark on this record with the increased emphasis on buzzsaw death metal. His mid-range rasps come across as more jarring than in sync with the rest of the soundscape. However, when he decides to employ his gutturals, the song comes alive. More of this range would have lifted many of the arrangements on this record to new heights. The production of Remember… You Must Die! A severe detraction from the death metal-leaning aesthetic is the pitiful edge lord song titles and lyrical content. While I understand that Suicide Silence leans on the cheesier aspects of metal poetry, it doesn’t seem to gel well with the current iteration of death metal forward tracks. As a personal complaint, I only wonder whether any of the tracks on this record, even though extremely competent on their own merit, will stand the test of time and reach the earworm status of tracks like “Unanswered”, “No Pity For A Coward”, “Disengage”, “Wake Up!”, “You Only Live Once” and a smattering of others. The downside of the old-school approach to songwriting is that one loses the simplistic yet almost animal appeal that those earlier tracks had. Only time will tell!

Remember… You Must Die! is a record filled with the most mature songwriting we’ve ever seen on a Suicide Silence record. A blend of raw death metal elements with deathcore staples, this record may spawn an entire genre of Old School Deathcore (OSDxC).