Suffocation hasn’t lost of its omnipotence.
Since 1988, and despite a short break between 1998 and 2002, the band is now led by Terrance Hobbs (guitar, Castrofate, ex-Criminal Element), Derek Boyer (bass, ex-Criminal Element, ex-Decrepit Birth, ex-Disgorge, ex-Dying Fetus… ), Eric Morotti (drums, Castrofate, ex-Killitorous), Charlie Errigo (guitar, The Merciless Concept, ex-Pyrexia) and Ricky Myers (vocals, Cinerary, Disgorge, Sarcolytic) are recognized as one of Brutal/Technical Death Metal’s finest bands. In 2023, they announce the release of Hymns from the Apocrypha, their ninth studio album, which is the first without their iconic vocalist, Frank Mullen.
From the very first track, Hymns From The Apocrypha, the band hits incredibly hard with a massive rhythm section, ferocious screams and above all, an absolutely perfect mix that makes every instrument audible. Slamming bass, blast, vocals and sharp guitars perfectly know how to slow down to create choking parts before accelerating again to let the solo explode, then the band returns to cruising speed, leading us into Perpetual Deception, which takes advantage of jerky patterns to place its furious spikes of technicality. The band takes us by surprise with a second of downtime, but the hits come at us again very quickly, notably with the apocalyptic final break, which doesn’t stop until Dim Veil of Obscurity and its polished Old School influences take over. The heady lead guitar draws its influences from motivating Heavy Metal, creating a real contrast with the overpowering basis crushing us until the final howl before releasing us on Immortal Execration, which adopts a rather majestic atmosphere to deliver its heaviness, before letting the musicians set off again at full speed. Leads again emerge from the mix, offering a different rhythm to this monolith of violence, which once again blows us away with its final moshpart, before Seraphim Enslavement, the first track to be unveiled, strikes back. Aside from the apocalyptic video clip, this composition remains very solid, alternating crushing passages with moments of high complexity, as will Descendants, which easily integrates dissonant and disquieting elements throughout. Also noteworthy is the band’s aggressive warlike approach, slowing the pace only to strike even harder and heavier, leaving the starring role to the gut-wrenching solo before moving on to Embrace The Suffering, which is clearly not the quietest track and doesn’t hesitate to mix its fierce riffs with monstrous vociferations and the steamroller-like drums. Delusions Of Mortality, the shortest track, doesn’t waste a single second in unleashing all its fury, with once again some originality on the solo while the rhythmic constantly hammers us, before letting Ignorant Deprivation close the album in the same way it began, letting each instrument’s raw violence meet dark worked patterns with one and only goal: total annihilation, as it already was thirty years ago on Breeding the Spawn.
Suffocation‘s new album was eagerly awaited by the Death Metal scene of all stripes. Unsurprisingly, it won’t be long before Hymns from the Apocrypha appears in all the year’s charts, such is the violence and meticulousness of this album.
95/100
Few questions to Suffocation’s longtime bass player Derek Boyer about their new album, Hymns from the Apocrypha.
Hello and first of all, thank you very much for your time! How do you feel?
Derek Boyer (bass): Fine, everything is good. I’m just trying to catch up. I’m playing catch up. So instead of getting two seconds, it’s just music everywhere in the house. And, hey, what’s up? I’m on an interview. Look at this, I’m on an interview interview. Yeah. Hello. Oh, no, the caster fell. This house is a very musical house that we live in. So Terrence and I live here, this is where we recorded the new album and it’s a big house with a big yard and upstairs is three bedrooms and downstairs is a garage and studio. So it’s perfect. We were able to record the record right here in the comfort of our home. Really, really good.
Could you please introduce yourself and the band Suffocation without using the usual musical labels, such as “Death Metal” ?
Derek: I am Derek. I play bass in a really crazy extreme band called Suffocation. And that’s us. We rip, we like to rip it up. We have been doing this for a long time and we don’t have any intention on stocking. So we will bring you another 10 albums, you know, maybe not.
The band’s new full-length, Hymns from the Apocrypha, will be out next month. How do you feel about releasing a new record, six years after the previous one? Do you already have some feedback?
Derek: I feel very good about the release and we’ve gotten a lot of feedback mostly from our peers that also play in extreme bands. Played it for the guys in Decrepit Birth, played it for some of the guys in Deeds of Flesh, played it for some other colleagues, other Brutal Death, not Brutal, extreme bands. And yeah. And it’s gotten pretty good responses so far. You know, a lot of people will say, oh, you know, it’s not what it was back in 91 and I would agree with them. If it stayed the same, it would be boring. So it’s we’re on the same path, but we have a evolution. Yeah, it’s evolved, you know, we have the same direction but our path can veer it’s still facing this way. It’s not like we did a u-turn or went that way or went that, but it’s grown, the path has widened. So it’s been six years. The pandemic, like I tell a lot of people, the pandemic is very useful if you take free time but I don’t believe we use the time. Right. I think the time was spoiled. So, it didn’t help us. For a lot of people, the pandemic was a godsend. They didn’t have to go to work. They could focus on writing or recording. For us, this is our job. And what I think happened was I couldn’t go to work and it made me depressed. So instead of using this free time for something positive, I used it negatively. I tried to sleep through the pandemic and it didn’t work. So, yeah, I almost slept through the whole thing. That’s right. Yeah, I was just ready to go back to work. I just want to get back out on stage and do, but I understand hindsight. I could have used the time wiser and the album would have sooner. But it, what it is, everything happens the way it happens.
How would you sum Hymns from the Apocrypha’s identity up in only three words?
Derek: So brutal, aggressive. And I would call it musical. And in my whole life, I always didn’t care for the melodic side of Extreme Metal. I choke machine, the more rhythm pound, brutal, aggressive and Suffocation has always had a lot of musical aspects and I feel that the melody is important and my first half of my career fuck melody. I don’t care about Metal. I don’t want to be melodic. I would always associate melody with happy for some reason, but it be dark and sad or angry music also. So I just wanted a machine. I wanted the aggressive aspect of music, not the melodic or melodious part. And I think this album does have melodies and it doesn’t have to be happy melodies. But sometimes a contrast if you have something that’s neutral or major positive, it makes the minor part, the darker part have more impact. You know, if you’re always playing happy, happy, happy, happy, you don’t notice happy. If you’re always playing dismal, dismal, dismal, dismal, you get used to dismal and nothing is more dismal. It’s all the same. So I think if we play something that’s more major, that’s more up. It only gives more contrast when we drop into the dismal.
So melody can be really depressive too. So I’m not really happy.
Derek: Very true. I love the way Europeans say depressive instead of depressing. I love this. It’s unique. For us, it’s unique, but you’re correct.
Hymns from the Apocrypha is the very first album with Ricky Myers on vocals. How did the composition process happen and how does it feel dealing with a “new” singer, even if you play live with him for a long time now?
Derek: No, Ricky is great. Every time this question gets asked, I could not ask for anything more. He is very serious, very driven, very committed. I’ve been working with Ricky since the early mid nineties. When he and I started, he first sang in my band before I joined his band back in the nineties, back in 95 or something. He sang in my band when I met him. He was the drummer of a band called Disgorge, Brutal Extreme Metal band. And I ended up joining his band, but before that, he played and he sang in my band and then here we are a million years later he’s singing. So I’ve been working with Ricky for a long time, but never at this level. But Ricky was great, very professional, very hardworking. And he brought a lot to this record. He did very well.
What about the artwork, what were the guidelines and how do they fit with the music you created?
Derek: I feel like the cover is classic Suffocation. It’s in the direction that if you saw it with no logo and you were getting 55 Extreme Metal, Black metal bands, blah, blah, blah. And you said which one of these looks most like Suffocation. This one would fit. I believe it fits the style of what we’ve been using or the early stuff. The guidelines were working with this guy. We talked to him, we gave him the lyrics and he was able to read the words and make this scenery and I think it fits perfectly. It’s classic Suffocation. It’s dark, it’s chaotic. There’s a little bit of death in there. Some murder, some mystery. And I love the cover. I am just here on my screen and it’s right here, I love it. I think it’s very well done. A Greek artist, Giannis Nakos. Very easy. We’re used to him. Two or three times in the past, it’s someone that Ricky brought to us again, and we love it. We love his style. We like the guy. He’s a very cool guy. We met him and hung out with him. He’s a great guy.
Bass has always been an important element in Suffocation‘s sound, how do you manage to get such a recognizable sound?
Derek: I am a terrible, terrible person. I need really, really fresh strings and people don’t realize that, you know how often I have to change them to get this sound? If someone can achieve this metallic sound with a dead string, please come tell me how to do it because I change my strings as often as every day. So where one the sound starts, it starts with the string. If your string, it’s like a file, you know, it’s a coil. If you’re scraping your hand, it’s like a file and your skin fills it and it doesn’t King King King, it goes poo, poo, poo, poo. So as soon as you play through them and sweat through them and wear them out, they’re no longer good. There’s a lot of tricks to cleaning them. But next I just put on a fresh set. In this summer the first time there is too much particles of skin and it is very important for me to have a clank that metallic. If you touch the string with your finger and you push it to the fret, it’s supposed to sound like metal, like two swords. When two swords hit each other, you know, if it’s two pieces of wood or a sword hitting wood, it doesn’t sound metallic. That’s the most important. or where it starts. There’s many other pieces of equipment but it’s very important for us to have this fresh sound.
How do you find the right balance between the Brutal parts and the more Technical elements?
Derek: I know Terrence is very concerned with making sure that it’s difficult. It’s not supposed to be awful, but also he doesn’t want it to be simple. The Slam heavy parts can be simple but it gets boring. So I think the idea is complexity is important but to get the balance just right is tricky. Sometimes you have too much technicality. The non musician who listens, it goes over their head if it’s not enough complex, is boring too. But you have to find out that not every listener is a musician or maybe not a technical musician. It can be very good piano player that plays simple melodies that, well, this is much, this is not Chopin, this is not Technical, you know, too crazy. But I think you have to strike that balance. You said it right. And it’s very important to us to write a song that is catchy for the non musician. But also interesting to the music.
You also decided to re-record the song Ignorant Deprivation, originally from the 1993 album Breeding the Spawn. How did you decide which song to pick, and why?
Derek: There was only two left. We have been rerecording that album since the band reformed. So actually the following album, after Breeding The Spawn was released, the album Pierced from Within from 1995. That is where that album began first getting recreated. If you notice Breeding the Spawn is featured on Pierce from Within. And that is where it started. Then if you look at the Japanese release of Souls to Deny, there is Anomalistic Offerings from Breeding the Spawn, then if you look at Blood Oath, there is Marital Decimation taken from Breeding the Spawn. And if you look at Pinnacle of Bedlam, there is Beginning of Sorrow taken from Breeding the Spawn if I said isn’t wrong. So every album we tried to redo a song, there was only two left. So we have one more album to do and we will have a product that we want to a bit of more. We would have resurrecting Breeding the Spawn instead of just redid this song, the whole album will have been redone very soon. Prelude to Repulsion is on the self-titled. Beginning of Sorrow is on Blood, you know, or excuse me on Pinnacle. Marital Decimation is on Blood. So every album has a Breeding the Spawn song, Ignorant Deprivation was chosen. It was a song that was written by Terence. Some of the songs were written by Doug Cerrito. So they are harder to figure out what was played back a million years ago, 30 years ago. So it’s tricky and I find it very fun that a song that was written 30 years ago can still be relevant today in this genre. I love it.
Well, you know, music is timeless.
Derek: Yeah, because we are still airing classical music. So perfect example, Bach Beethoven Mozart, all of it we still listen to to this day. I love that.
Maybe you have a favorite song on this album? Or maybe the hardest one to achieve for the album?
Derek: I’m listening to the album, a decent amount of time. Try to get familiar with what I like the most and what it’s often funny before the albums are recorded, we’ve done many albums. Before the album is recorded, I have a favorite song and then after the album is recorded, it’s changed because of this particular performance that was captured or the production that we feature. So I’m really liking a few of the songs. Not really more than the others, but songs that really stand out to me are descendants. It’s a song that Terence and I put together in two or three days that came together really fast. And I really like the single that was just released. Perpetual Deception. Is this right? Is it? I’m all 2nd guessing myself. Now, the second track that’s funny because my favorite is the third one, Dim Veil of Obscurity. I love this because some listeners will favor this perfect example. I was telling our guitar tech today, he picked me up from the train station and when we were driving, we were talking about the performance in Daytona last weekend, we flew down to Florida and played, and the guy who works for Cannibal Corpse was working the stage. I didn’t like something about it. And he goes “ah, shut up”. He goes, “you will have played here last year and played your best show you’ve ever played in your life”. And a guy will come up to you and say tonight was the best you’ve ever played. And we’re like, “wait, were you here last year?” And he goes, “yeah”. But this was way better. And I’m like, what, you know, so, perception is different, just like we said, Breeding the Spawn is a record that we chose to redo because the production is awful and some people come up to us Breeding the Spawn is my favorite album. It’s like, holy shit, how you know, but everyone is different and that’s wonderful. I’m so glad to hear that. Dim Veil of Obscurity is one of your more favorite tracks because everyone is different. I love this. It’s all about balance and perception and preference.
Despite a short break between 1998 and 2002, the band has been active for 35 years now, even if you’re not a founding member, how do you still find your inspiration?
Derek: Inspirations come from so many different directions. Sometimes a deadline is inspiration, you’d be surprised it could come from. “Oh, my goodness. We have to meet this deadline. Oh, I’m inspired to perform.” Sometimes you hear a song from another band that inspires you to write or after all this time, we are still inspired to create music and it’s a wonderful thing. I love it.
Do you think you improved yourself as a musician and songwriter with this new record?
Derek: I do. I feel that I’m constantly improving and if it’s not just my knowledge, it’s sometimes my ability. And it’s also funny because a while back, I thought I can’t get any better than this. I’m as good as I will be. I’m comfortable with my abilities. I worked very hard for many years, decades to be able to play the way I play. And I’m still inspired to get better. It’s strange because sometimes I get complacent and I say, “oh, there’s no more. There’s nowhere I know.” Obviously you can get better. There is no ceiling. There’s nowhere to go but up and I don’t see a ceiling up there. You know, it’s just air. So I think you can always improve, always advance. That’s true. Sometimes we get complacent and we think “I’m pretty good. Ok. Do I really can I get better?” The answer is always, yes, you can always improve. But sometimes I’ll hit a ceiling in my own mind. I don’t know if I can play better than this. I’m playing so I’m confident in my ability and it’s wonderful to feel that. Oh, man, and what I was trying to get to cutting myself off here, Sometimes it and improvements come from different places. The improvement that I’m thinking of is production. If I can go down into the studio right now and make my amplifier sound great to where I love it. This is the best sound. How do I capture this? You put a microphone on it, wrong microphone. Oh, let’s try a different 10, this was the best one. Now, let’s try to move this amplifier into a different location. So there’s so and so I guess what I was trying to say is I’m improving in lately with this one, the improvement I found was learning how to capture my sound because when I get to a stage, if they have the right equipment or if I’m bringing my own equipment, I know how to make this thing, do the right heavy clanky thing. But sometimes you don’t capture that. I’ve had albums where I thought I brought a good sound to the studio and I left with a product that I did not like the sound of the bass. So this particular album I feel that I improved in learning how to capture my sound.
How do you feel when you’re on stage?
Derek: Best, it’s the best place. That’s my most favorite. Most comfortable is the stage, I will prefer to be on a stage than a studio anytime 10 out of 10, put me on a stage. And, it’s tough because studio is comfortable. Sometimes a stage in Bolivia, not comfortable, but there’s still an energy there. I’m just using that as an example. We had a great show in Bolivia but it was hot or it was small or it was slippery or something, you know, so it’s always tricky, but I would always, I would always think that I prefer the stage over anywhere.
Suffocation also announced a European tour, scheduled for the beginning of 2024, how do you get ready for this? Do you enjoy playing in France?
Derek: Love it, love the French fans. I’ve celebrated a birthday in Marseille before and yeah, absolutely. We played a June 23rd show in Marseille a few years back but, but I, I love playing in France. I’ve had some wonderful shows in Paris. I’ve had ferocious fans, you know, diving off the stage and like really fun. We brought one time we played in Paris, we brought it was the end of the tour. The venue was probably not so happy about it, but we brought all the beer from the whole tour, a huge bag and halfway into the show we started giving it out and I’m sure the bar was not so happy, but the place went crazy because they were getting free drinks, and they were diving off the stage. It was a wonderful show.
So, and how do you get ready for the tour?
Derek: Yes, I’m sorry, I jumped past that. I think there’s nothing better to get ready for a tour, then another tour or another show. So we like to try to get warm up shows if we can get like we were just down in Florida. Then I got back today. Then we played over the weekend. Then in two days we go to Mexico to do a mini tour, 10 days down there, I think 10 or 12 days and then a few maybe a week or so after that, a week or two. After that, we are in Europe. Excuse me in North America. Then after Christmas will be so I think a warm up show is the best. If not rehearsal, rehearsals are great, which sometimes we don’t get enough. The shows are our rehearsals, which is not very conventional, but by the third one, we dialed in, you know, so sometimes it shows you into the flow of it but physically, doing your stretching stuff like this, this also conditions is very important. Our body is a machine, you know, and if we boil it, it’s happy. If we don’t, it’s not happy.
Are there any musicians or artists you would like to collaborate with? Whether it is for one song, or maybe more.
Derek: I need to play with a few players before I’m done. And one of which I’m good friends with, but I would love to work with and I have not had a chance to is Vogg of Decapitated. Oh, he’s my boy. I love him. He’s a good friend and he rips. He’s just got something very unique about him. There’s a couple of drummers out there that I’m love with, and guitar players. I love my drummer. I love my vocalist. I love everyone in Suffocation.
Just collaboration.
Derek: It’s outside. But you know, people, it’s moonlighting, people can get offended. “Oh, you’re playing with that guitar player. What about my guitar playing?” You know, they could be like this, but at the end of the day, you’re right. It’s just a collaboration. I would love to work with Mike Hamilton, drummer of Deeds of Flesh and Exhumed. He’s another good one. There’s players out there but off the top of my head, those two I would like to work with before, before I’m done.
If you had to organize a concert for Hymns from the Apocrypha’s release show, which bands would you love to play with? I let you create a poster with Suffocation and three other bands!
Derek: Wow. Any particular order? I really, and I keep saying this and I don’t know if it’ll ever happen and I don’t mean to offend anyone. I don’t think it’s offensive, but I really want to play with Lorna Shore. Because it’s an interesting one. Not even about their music. Their music is bringing a lot of people to the concerts and I’m not sure what they’re doing in Europe, but here in the US, they are doing so good and I’m actually very happy to see this size crowd. These turnouts are good. We have plenty of good shows, but on a Tuesday, these guys can have a fat show where it’s like, oh, man, we would have done better on a Friday. It doesn’t matter what day of the week they’re fans, right. Let’s put, Decapitated on the bill. I want Gorgoroth. Boom. Currently like real time bands. I want Vogg and the boys. I want Luke and the boys and let’s get Will and the boys out here, let’s do it.
Last and funny question : which dish would you compare Suffocation’s music with?
Derek: Music with dish? Oh my God. I’m gonna say we’re gonna… this one is tough. My first instinct is to put some ice cream. Yeah, this is gonna be crazy. It’s gonna be some ice cream with a bunch of fruit, blueberries and bananas and then let’s do, let’s do some ground up cashews nuts and whipped cream. I was thinking about that chili. Yeah, it’s kind of a sweet chili. You surprised me.
That was the last question for me, so thank you very much for your time and your music, last words are yours!
Derek: Thank you so much. We look forward to bringing this new record, Hymns from the Apocrypha to France and thank you. Thank you. Take care.