ALBUM REVIEW: Humans Are Broken – Sisters of Suffocation
Death metal outfit SISTERS OF SUFFOCATION, hailing from Eindhoven, have returned with a contender for their strongest album yet. Humans Are Broken is their second full length album, following on from Anthology of Curiosities. This album is absolutely crushing and brutal but manages to have technicality, where some bands are heavy for heaviness-sake.
The title track kicks Humans Are Broken off in the best way possible, rhythmic pounding on the drums and immense riffs tells you exactly what to expect from it. Blending fast paced hammering, with a slow and foreboding section breaks up the track and giving way to an eclectic display of guitar skill by Simone van Straten. Next up is Wolves, a much slower track, at least initially, that gradually build ups momentum. The whole pacing and raw ferocity, on top of the awesome riffs certainly makes this one headbang worthy. Not to mention the guitar solo and Els Prins’ ability to switch vocal styles almost mid verse is out of this world. Wars In My Head, while a powerful and crushing track, suffers from being a little repetitive, at least until the last third when the style gets flipped on its head.
Around the halfway mark, we hear a thrashier track called What We Create. You can tell that some inspiration was taken from CARCASS, and it shows, not that it’s a carbon-copy, but takes what is great and expands upon it. One of the ways they do this, is as simple as switching up the pacing every so often and forming a kind of emotional narrative to keep the listener invested in the track. The monstrous seventh track Little Shits is a rage fuelled mosh fest. You can feel the hate and seething anger exude from the lyrics, touching on the subjects of discrimination and sexism, something that many bands that are primarily female sadly experience. In this track in particular, you can hear Puck Wildschut’s basslines add extra depth and oomph to an already meaty track. The Next Big Thing, is exactly what is says on the tin. It fuses all the elements that we’ve heard so far, the technicality, the emotion, the guttural vocals and immense instrument work, all into one. From the get go you can tell that this is going to be a whopper of a track. SISTERS OF SUFFOCATION even throw in a cheeky acoustic and clean vocal section that catches the listener off guard but stands as a nice reprieve.
Yet again, another massive song that just keeps pounding you into the ground with the weight of its heaviness. Blood On Blood continues SISTERS OF SUFFOCATION’s track record of making some incredibly hefty songs, one after another it’s relentless. Riff after riff, the weight keeps on coming like a freight train, due to the prowess and skill of Emmelie Herwegh. A great example is penultimate track, The Objective, intense, battering drums from Kevin van den Heiligenberg accompanied by varying vocal styles that mix guttural growls with powerful clean vocals. Not only that, but a good part of The Objective is face melting, spine tingling guitar solos that spark genuine joy whenever I’ve heard them across the breadth of the album. Burn takes a tone in the same vein as Little Shits, with many hard-hitting lyrics that speak the truth and show just how despicable and vile humans can be. That aside, the musical composition is absolutely stellar, once again showing that they aren’t afraid to mix things up a bit to convey their message.
Overall, the new release Humans Are Broken, by Dutch death metallers SISTERS OF SUFFOCATION is thrilling and exciting throughout. They use a blend of musical styles and timings to say the message that they have, whilst keeping close to their roots and inspirations, merging the two into a work of art. Humans Are Broken is a stunning record and a great start to 2019.
Rating: 8/10
Humans Are Broken is set for release February 22nd via Napalm Records.
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