Make Them Suffer
Album: Neverbloom
Genre: Symphonic/Progressive Deathcore
I’ve
never done a true review of an album before, but I feel like Neverbloom warranted it – enough people
seem to be missing what I perceive as the point of the album that I’d like to
help you guys hear what I hear, and hopefully you end up picking up something
you may not have heard or noticed before in the process (or at least gaining a
little more respect for what Make Them Suffer has accomplished with this
release). Since this is my first
extended review, try to go easy on me ;)
Let me
just start by saying this…as I’m sure a lot of our visitors know, bands that
use generous servings of chugs generally bore the ever-loving fuck out of me,
almost as a rule. I really don’t like
them at all…I don’t see the point, and they usually wind up being a creative cop-out
rather than an effective artistic device.
I can see some of the appeal of breakdown-heavy tunes – at live shows they
get the crowd going, there’s an enormous amount of energy and pent-up anger
release associated with them, and they’re really easy to bang your head to…but
bands who’ve mastered the breakdown/chug such as Whitechapel, Carnifex, Chelsea
Grin, Oceano, and even Vildhjarta/Meshuggah to a certain extent just don’t do
it for me.
Enter
the Australian symphonic/progressive deathcore sextet Make Them Suffer. Their latest release, the impeccably-produced
musical sojourn they’ve titled Neverbloom,
shows the band maturing on a number of levels from their 2010 EP Lord of Woe – more technical, diverse,
and balanced in every conceivable way. Neverbloom explores one man’s
heartwrenching sorrow and grieving process by taking us along on dream walk
through a darkened forest. Is this a
literal dream-walk, or is he simply in a reality so terrible it feels like it
could only be a dream? I leave that for
you to decide.
In the orchestral opening “Prologue”,
the listener is introduced to the dream-state which permeates the rest of the
album. I imagine the start of the track as
an “awakening” – scintillating, barely-there brushes on the keys wherein our
dreamer opens his eyes and finds himself dropped in the middle of a gloomy forest. The strings are plucked as his anxiety
ratches up…he’s beginning to realize just where he is, and he pushes himself to
his feet. His heartbeat quickens as, in
terror, he grasps that he is alone in this world. When the violin section starts around 50
seconds in, he remembers what brought him to these woods in the first place – his
sorrow and anguish builds and builds towards a crescendo as we reach the end of
the track, and….BOOM. The howl at the
outset of the title track signals an explosive emotional release and the start
of his grieving process. We’re
introduced to his mourning when we’re told that this forest (and now its
singular inhabitant) has only ever known sorrow, as the final drop of joy left
in this world falls from a tree as a single tear which disintegrates as it
touches the ground. With this last gasp
at joy, all that’s left to keep him company is the moaning of the trees, and
our dreamer starts the first stage of grief – denial. He’s lingered in his garden of woe for so
long in hope that the tear would ignite the growth of another flower of
happiness…but that bloom never comes as a result of the curse of an entity
named Morrow. I could continue examining
the lyrical content of each track, but if you look at the album through this
lens you’ll realize that the other tracks on Neverbloom are taking you through the other stages of grief as a
progression between denial, depression, anger, and acceptance. By the end of the record, he has come full
circle and realizes that his sole purpose is now to take the suffering
inflicted on him by Morrow and visit it upon the world a thousand-fold.
Clearly, Make Them Suffer is adept
at writing beautiful and poetic lyrics (sit down and give the album another
couple listens while following the lyrics booklet if you don’t believe me). What you might be thinking, though, is that
woe is an theme better left explored through black metal or funeral/doom metal,
or maybe you even think it’s an emo thing for teenage girls whose parents “just
don’t understand them”. THIS is where
MTS separates themselves from essentially every
other deathcore band…they realize that atmospheric/orchestral touches can be
used not only to transport and relax the listener, provide a contrasting “calm
before the storm” or eye-of-the-storm effect, or even to alter the feel of the
music by making it sound more massive/theatrical, but also to completely change
the MEANING – passages which before were simply pissed at the world become a
touching lashing-out, parts that may have been seen as whiny post-hardcore
bitching are transformed to a baleful sorrow.
Were it not for the ever-present haunting
keys, violin notes, or synth samples, MTS would probably be just another
outrageously talented Australian band squandering the gifts they’ve very
obviously been given…but the various elements and influences combine to ensure
that this doesn’t happen. The background
orchestration adds an atmosphere of constant turmoil which, while not always
entirely audible, is always there tugging relentlessly on the listener’s heartstrings. The impossibly heavy chugs, djent
tempo-shifts, breakdowns, and blast beats employed by MTS would be bland,
generic, overdone, and monotonous in any other band, but when coupled with the
ever-shifting emotion conveyed by their symphony and pummeling vocals, become
an entirely unique vehicle for traversing a landscape of anguish. Each chug and double-kick punctuates what I
can only imagine as a wracking breath which has come harder than the last. Each breakdown is the dreamer falling to his
knees, pounding the ground and screaming in unrelenting agony. Each growl and wail is a siren’s song for the
soul of his lost loved one and for his own tortured sanity. The brutal, droning, sludgy style forges an
extraordinarily effective instrument for forcefully dragging the audience
through these mires of oppressive sorrow and simultaneously illustrates an
unbridled rage at the entity Morrow for causing such pain. The interludes provide both a respite from
the raw passion in the previous tracks and a transition into the next stage of
grief.
In summation, Make Them Suffer
might sound generic and chuggy at first, but trust me…when taking the music and
its message as a whole and really giving yourself the opportunity to understand
everything this album has to offer, you might be surprised…or even blown away. Neverbloom
is one of the best deathcore albums of the past couple years, and I’ll probably
wind up looking back on this album as doing for deathcore this year what Erra’s
Impulse did for metalcore last year. I’d give this album a very-nearly--perfect
rating of 4.99 out of 5. Why did it miss
out on the final 0.01? Only because I’m
a little disappointed that they didn’t have their brilliant symphony a little
higher in the mix since I enjoyed those parts as much if not more than anything
else. Make Them Suffer has a gigantic
future ahead of them. PLEASE buy this album and keep them around <3
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