Album Review: Make Them Suffer - 'Neverbloom'

1 June 2012 | 7:59 pm | Staff Writer
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Heavy offering from Perth upstarts.

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Australia's legitimacy when it comes to metal is as strong as it is respectable. At least now anyway. The metalcore craze has been explored domestically, so too the deathcore rise. So, it's timely and almost fitting that us Aussies now jump on the symphonic metal ship.

Perth's Make Them Suffer are a hybrid or perhaps just a composite. In the best possible sense though. Yes, they have keyboards and screeching Scandanvian inspired vocals, but to suggest this is exclusively symphonic, European inspired music is slightly inaccurate. It's got that nordic flavour but sans narrow genre confines and the obligatory corpse paint. There's some chugging and breakdowns thrown in too, which make this a merger of similar yet competing styles. However, let's just call it blackened death metal and move on for convenience sake.

Debut studio album 'Neverbloom' is bold and ambitious and takes its cues from a number of international acts. It's assertive when first played on the stereo and that's an initial pass mark taken well care of there. It just picks up for where 'Lord of Woe' left off meaning the adjustment period is not prolonged.

Dissecting and moving below the surface, 'Neverbloom' is dense in sound and solid in structure. It probably doesn't scream as innovative, but we won't hold that against the band. The quality is still consistent and the music loud.

Early tracks 'Morrow' and 'Elegies' have that Bleeding Through feel going on where thrashy, core riffs are paralleled with a prominent keyboard section. 'Ocean of Emptiness' is the ominous instrumental break, while 'Weeping Wastelands' begins with the trademark neck-moving passage and at almost seven minutes long is the most impressive track on the release.

Roadrunner Records obviously considered Make Them Suffer worthy of promotion and 'Neverbloom' for what it's worth seemingly justifies this support. Maybe for you Game of Throne lovers, this can be your unofficial soundtrack.

Make Them Suffer's name has slowly yet gradually made its way into the local metal vocabulary over the last 12 to 18 months. 'Neverbloom' thankfully highlights that this regard is for adequate reasons.

1. Prologue

2. Neverbloom

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3. Morrow

4. Elegies

5. Maelstrom

6. Oceans Of Emptiness

7. The Well

8. Weeping Wastelands

9. Widower

10. Chronicles