Suicide Commando revisits its past.
In 2025, Belgian musician Johan Van Roy decides to revisit his first album, Critical Stage, released in 1994, with reinterpreted versions of five tracks, gathered on his new EP Final Stage.
We begin with Where do we go from here [Final stage], a first composition with omnipresent percussion that provides an aggressive introduction, allowing the vocalist to create an additional layer of oppression as soon as he arrives. Keyboard strings remain haunting, leading into H.I.V.+ [Disease Disease], which first creates a sense of anguish before offering mysterious tones, coupled with a slow but effective beat that paves the way for the vocal parts. The track is fairly restrained, in contrast to the upbeat Traumatize [Shaking 2025], which offers a danceable sound with a fairly straightforward sequence of riffs, but provides a solid basis for skull-shaking. Worry resurfaces with Fate [Death is coming … again!] and its sample coupled with a repetitive melody tinged with anguish, then the sound becomes livelier again with Necrophilia [Body to Body], which could easily get a whole nightclub moving thanks to its more motivating tones, despite a rather gloomy introductory sample. The EP ends with De weg, Johan‘s very first composition on which he sings in German, and which was subsequently transformed into the first track, but which here has a little extra weighty touch, which is quite interesting.
Suicide Commando‘s recipe has been proving itself for over 30 years, and revisiting old tracks only proves it! Final Stage will be a must-have for fans of the band, but also an excellent introduction for newcomers.
80/100