ALBUM REVIEW: Collide – Suffering Quota
Dutch grindcore merchants SUFFERING QUOTA have been dishing out sharp jabs of ferocity for the best part of 15 years. In that time, they’ve clawed their way out of the Groningen underground and spread their vitriol the world over. With their third album Collide, they show no signs of slowing as they take grindcore, death metal, crust punk and hardcore, stick them all in a blender and launch the resulting concoction straight into your face.
Right away, the discordance is pushed to uncomfortable levels on Out, as tortured strings stab through a bed of static before an explosion of jagged and barbed fury that has SUFFERING QUOTA showing every ounce of the experience they’ve accrued over the years. Incredibly tight, tangibly raw and utterly engrossing, they sink their hooks in within this first minute of the album and make sure you feel them dig through your flesh.
Recorded live, just like their previous album Life In Disgust, the energy that oozes from Collide is its strongest quality. Miles, Rights and Side are tossed like molotovs, bursting into violent flame as soon as they land. The throat-shredding vocals and blitzing drums barely let up for even half a second. Sure the tracks are sometimes just 36 seconds long, but they pile so much intensity into every note, as if it’s the last thing they’ll ever play.
“God loves violence. Why else would there be so much of it? It’s in us.” comes the Shutter Island quote at the start of Grow, which – true enough – is bursting at the seams with violence. Drawn out over two-and-a-half minutes, it’s twice the length of most of what we’ve heard so far on the album, but breezes by in what feels like a fraction of that time.
The second half of the album doesn’t let up, with the likes of Pig and False being amongst the most volatile tracks on Collide. The former is made up of an incredibly potent riff and some of the most nightmarish screams we’ve heard from SUFFERING QUOTA up to now, while the latter is a monumental cascade of dirgey bass and snare assaults that feel like they’re coming from within your own skull.
Scorn caps the album as a relative behemoth compared to everything that came before. Over four minutes long (a quarter of the whole album), SUFFERING QUOTA fold new melodic elements into the maelstrom, and even manage to squeeze in a guitar solo and instrumental break. The rebuild in the back half of the song reaches cataclysmic heights that’ll have you headbutting everything in your vicinity, before it all fades out to static and feedback, and what seems to be the sound of flames. It’s very likely that their setup combusted after everything it’s just been put through.
In the world of grindcore, bands don’t have long to make an impression when it comes to new releases. Collide doesn’t even last 20 minutes, but SUFFERING QUOTA have poured their 15 years of experience into it to make sure you won’t forget this one in a hurry.
Rating: 8/10
Collide is set for release on May 26th via Lower Class Kids Records, Tartarus Records and 7Degrees Records.
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