Recension på vårat mästerverk.....




Suffocate For Fuck Sake - Blazing Fires and Helicopters on the Frontpage of the Newspaper...

Score: 7/10
Suffocate For Fuck Sake manage to place its audience in a unique world, a dark atmosphere filled with breathtaking brutality and blinding beauty. They describe their sound as Breach, Cult Of Luna, Mogwai and Sigur Ros all playing at the same time and have a trademark of combining their music with vocal samples taken from recorded interviews. On Blazing Fires and Helicopters on the Frontpage of the Newspaper. There's a War Going on and I'm Marching in Heavy Boots they “follow a Swedish girl when she's looking back to the time she got put in a mental institute.” If that sounds like it could make for an interesting album concept, well, it does. The contrast of slow-core, dark ambient and interview samples form a mesmerizing and touching whole. Blazing Fires... focuses on the concept of losing control in life, which is reflected in the brutality of the harder parts and the creativity in the ambient parts of the album. The intensity and contrast make it a heavy album to digest, as it tends to creep up on the listener every time he begins to feel slightly comfortable. It's a roller coaster of emotions and extremes, not really well suited as background music… it’s a pearl that needs undivided attention, although there’s one problem. The vocal samples are taken from interviews with the aforementioned girl, a friend, her mother and doctor, and they are in Swedish, which might not work for some who don’t speak the language. Overall, the samples are guided by magnificent soundscapes -- the ambient post-rock and the vocals form a whole, much like French Teen Idol’s music -- but the Swedish got on my nerves occasionally. On one hand, this might be a reason to dislike the album, on the other, these samples only strengthen the premise of the album. In the booklet, illustrated by Sofia Andersson, an English translation of the interview is provided, however.Blazing Fires... is somewhat reminiscent of early Isis and their collaboration with Aereogramme, even with a touch of Melvins. The raw sound of the guitars and the emotion of the gut-ripping vocals are overwhelming; SFFS gives the best of themselves to create something brutal yet touching. Sometimes the album is rather surprising -- for instance, a lo-fi indie interlude is hidden in "We Are Driving Through Darkness" and didn’t I hear Amon Tobin jamming with Grails somewhere on this runaway roller coaster? In short, Blazing Fires... is a moving, dark and heavy-listening concept album which will either grab the the listener with all its might or not at all. The whole concept, from album titles, booklet, interview selection, and so on, all forms a complex and amazing whole that is worth checking into.-Jurgen Verhasselt