Suicide Silence’s New Album Sold Poorly In Its First Week Of Sales

So you release a terrible album & then claim that “the record industry is dying” when the album's first week of sales turn out to be equally terrible?

No Suicide Silence, your band is the one dying it seems. 

This week, Rock Sound ran an article called “SUICIDE SILENCE’S EDDIE HERMIDA: “THE RECORD INDUSTRY IS DYING”.

In it, vocalist Eddie Hermida stated that "It’s becoming stale because the higher-ups and the people that run things put too much value into what people say on the internet and forget that there are a plethora of people out there who are not being catered to" in regards to the self-titled album's response and it's low sales. He also said that "We’re going to show the industry that this online world we’ve been putting so many of our fears and anxieties into isn’t actually real."

So, in Hermida's and the band's eyes, these sales are not indicative of the actual quality of their new record and definitely not because of how they've responded to not only their peers but also their fans. Rather, to them, the album's poor sales have been affected by the close-minded fans and deathcore purists, the trolling bloggers, and the media that - I'm sure in the band's mind - have merely followed the online hatred for the sake of pure traffic and clicks.

Fucking hell, this stubborn band is in some severe denial!

Though, I cannot say I'm really surprised or shocked hearing this, seeing as how drummer Alex Lopez publically and immaturely insulted fans over Facebook when 'Doris' initially dropped and how the rest of the band and also producer Ross Robinson have reacted to the backlash and criticism.

Originally reported by Metal Injection, who had help from Billboard reporter Ryan J. Downey for supplying them with the apparent figures - that only 4,650 copies of this new album were sold - the band's vast decline in first week sales in the US since 2014's 'You Can't Stop Me' is pretty bloody dire. Considering that their previous record sold around 14,000 copies in its first week. Furthermore, on the day of the self-titled album's release - February 24th - it hit #44 on the US iTunes Charts. Just a day later, it was down to #84. Yikes.

As writer Robert Pasbani also points out in that aforementioned Metal Injection article, Born Of Osiris's re-released version of 'The Eternal Reign' sold just shy of 4,000 copies. Which means that a goddamn re-release of a ten-year-old EP almost outsold this new "effort" from Suicide Silence in the US.

Over here in Australia, the band fell 48 spots with this self-titled record landing at a far-off, distant #78. Just as a comparison, ‘You Can’t Stop Me’ debuted on the ARIA Charts at #30, which wasn't an amazing chart position, but it's still a damn sight better place to be (and also a better album) than this accursed thing. The self-titled album also fared terribly in Germany as well, barely scrapping over the Top 100 by landing at #98 (down from #24) and the highest it peaked in Canada was #42. These chart positions remind me of the charting of the band's debut album, 'The Cleansing' but that made sense, as you know, it was their debut album.

We all know that the music industry is a far cry from what it once was two or three decades ago in terms of sales and consumer platforms, but for one of the metal's biggest deathcore bands to sell barely 5,000 copies in the first week of a new album is just not a good sign. No matter how much the band may try and disingenuously spin it in their defence.

For the public has voted and they've voted with their most important tool - their wallets.

Now, if you were to follow the band's thought train and blame these low sales on the Internet hate, just look at Emmure and their new album to see that that's just not true.

Emmure is a band that got constantly shit on, and at times, rightfully so. Yet their killer new album  'Look At Yourself' is one of their most consistent records to date! Sure, it took a drastic lineup change and for Frankie Palmeri to grow up and look deeply inwards for Emmure to achieve that but they've been killing Suicide Silence in the iTunes charts. For their new album, Emmure scored #20 here in Australia, #13 in the US (though it's now down to #43), #41 in Germany, #14 in Canada and #72 in the UK - which is all still better than Suicide Silence's album!

Suicide Silence's label, Nuclear Blast Records, deeply love and widely support the bands that they push and work with, and obviously so – they do work with some solid bands and if they're selling and doing well, they want everyone to know about it! Yet since this album’s release, I have received no emails from NBR addressing the new album’s actual release, the sales, nor anything else regarding this matter.

What. A. Shock.

The only thing that I've heard is what everyone else has - the band's denial and shifting of blame away from them and their poor songwriting this time around.

Sales aside, the only glowingly positive reviews that I've seen of the album so far have been the 10/10 Outburn Magazine review and Dave 'Higgo' Higgins recent op-ed piece for Hysteria Mag, saying that metal has "Too many whingers, not enough supporters". Elsewhere, Rock Sound actually scored the record quite low with a 4/10, whereas Metal Injection were more favourable to it, giving it a 6/10. And hey, fair enough, if that is actually what those writers and outlets all truly think about the new record, then more power to them!

But as for myself, if you haven’t read it yet, you can read my review of the new self-titled album right here. Traffic and clicks don't concern me a great deal, even though I am the editor of KYS, but bad music does concern me and this record is just awful. As this whole saga continues, I'm starting to feel that 25/100 was maybe far too high a score for this damned thing.

Seriously, fuck this record.

Stream below one of only two "good" songs found on this new album, new single 'Dying In A Red Room'.