Death metal is a music genre that seems to fluctuate with waves of new bands appearing all at once, meaning that it can often be something of a chore to filter out the good from the bad. Fortunately, San Francisco based Succumb are the former. Their self-titled debut album is an intense, abrasive and murky effort that appears to have very little hope or positivity contained within it.
Without hesitation the album opens with the furious instrumental track ‘The Initiate’. Pummelling drums supplied by Harry Cantwell (Bosse-De-Nage) and down-tuned guitars create the overall, apocalyptic sound of the record. The general mood is then fully formed by the addition of front-woman Cheri Musrasrik’s terrifying and ghoulish vocals. Two of the best examples of these come in the forms of ‘Destroyer II’ and ‘Bedchambers’ where Musrasrik’s howls, although perhaps a little strained, express both suffering and desperation throughout.
‘Bedchambers’ and ‘Survival’ incorporate other elements such as blackened death metal and doom, making the aural journey that is ‘Succumb’ even darker. Several of the tracks have layered vocals; Cheri’s have an echo effect as though performed from the back of a cave or bottom of a well and the second is a more masculine, guttural vocal track that finally removes any remaining light from this trip into the darkness.
‘Seeding’ is the longest track that also has elements of hardcore as it rapidly changes pace and tempo from beginning to end. The track also includes a disturbing ambient audio sample at the end that can only be described as the sounds you’d expect to hear coming from Leatherface’s workshop.
The penultimate track on the record is the aptly named ‘Coal Dark Earth’ which occasionally holds a striking resemblance to the infamous Siberian ‘Well to Hell’ audio recording. ‘Coal Dark Earth’ is the most aggressive and vicious track as it’s a full on, in your face attack of traditional death metal. Each song on the album slightly bleeds into the next without respite and album closer ‘The Flood’ is a big, chuggy showcase of blackened death metal that shows what the album is all about.
Citing poets such as Yeats, Jean Genet and Emile Zola as primary lyrical influences, there never was going to be an air of positivity surrounding this record, which tackles various themes akin to those of human experimentation, auto-erotic asphyxiation, BDSM, prostitution, opium dens and dystopias. A visual comparison would be that of a Dementor sucking the life and joy from one’s soul without a Patronus charm in sight.
Sadly the tracks on the album do blur slightly and sound very similar, but it could also be argued that this helps generate and maintain the dark overtones and atmosphere which it doesn’t lack in the slightest. It’d be all too easy (albeit lazy) to draw comparisons to other metal outfits using similar themes, but with a commendable debut album, Succumb have proven themselves to be a different class of beast altogether.
JAMES DAVENPORT