J-Man In my experience with extreme metal, deathcore seems to be one hell of an inconsistent genre. Although you'll occasionally come across a top-notch band like Born of Osiris, the overwhelming number of untalented and generic acts makes this style of music seem like a bit of a minefield. Suicide Silence are among the more popular bands on the modern deathcore scene - this album actually reached Number 28 on the U.S. Billboard Charts - so I figured now's as good a time as any to finally give this American act a shot. I'll say that right from the get-go, The Black Crown is a hell of a lot better than a lot of modern deathcore out there. It's clear that Suicide Silence are gifted musicians, and their technical sensibilities proove that they are far-distanced from the herds of talentless deathcore bands on the scene. The Black Crown falls into the trap of uninspired songwriting, generic riffs, and laughable lyrics, but this effort isn't quite as pathetic as I would've expected. I don't enjoy this one very much, but it could've been worse. If the band would get rid of the pointless breakdowns and stupid lyrics, The Black Crown could've easily been a much more impressive observation.

The music here is fairly standard deathcore, but the death metal influence tends to fortunately outweigh the hardcore influence. There are quite a few cool death metal riffs and melodic sections contained throughout The Black Crown, yet no single song is enjoyable from beginning to end thanks to the weak breakdowns. I wish the band would either focus on creating solid music without always building up to a formulaic breakdown, or at least put a bit more effort into making the breakdowns interesting - so many tracks are nearly destroyed by boring two-note grooves that offer nothing meaningful to the song itself. Even though the compositions may not be the most interesting things in the world, at least they are executed well. Suicide Silence are talented musicians... maybe that's why it's such a shame to hear them using this talent to play uninspired riffs matched with stupid lyrics. Songs like "You Only Live Once" and "Fuck Everything" contain lyrics that are laughable at best - repeating "fuck everything!" 100 times does not strike me as something particularly insightful or meaningful. Unfortunately, the generic and over-polished production doesn't make the music here seem any more inspired either.

If I had to briefly sum up Suicide Silence, I would say that they are technically outstanding musicians playing compositions that are too sterile and emotionless to even mildly pique my interest. As is this issue with far too many deathcore acts, the breakdowns are just boring as hell and anything else that is even slightly interesting never takes precedent in the actual songwriting. The Black Crown isn't a particularly terrible album - it has a few decent bits played by professional musicians - but it's far from anything worth more than just a couple of listens. I'd say a weak 2 stars are deserved here. This one is only recommended to big fans of deathcore.

Wilytank Since Suicide Silence's first two albums aren't to be found on Grooveshark, I must make do with their latest helping: 'The Black Crown'.

Suicide Silence's expertise seems to be slower paced deathcore with a certain amount to technicality. "Slaves to Substance" and "O.C.D." seem like prolonged breakdowns though the former does have some interesting melodic feel to it. The third song "Human Violence" is an example of this band playing faster than normal. It's obviously not by very much.

Looking particularly at the music in the song "Fuck Everything", you can really see how inane the riffing is. The chugging is annoying, but it's what this band is apparently know for.

Songs seven through nine feature guest vocals. The first one, "Witness the Addiction", has Jonathan Davis from Korn. He's featured on a clean vocal section near the two minute mark of the song. Unfortunately, it's the best part of the song, because the music also takes up a melodic stance. It repeats around the 4:30 mark to attempt to keep things interesting.

The next is "Cross-Eyed Catastrophe". Here we have Alexia Rodriguez from mall-core band Eyes Set to Kill doing some clean back round "ehhh"s. She does sings actual lyrics for a line at the 2:12 mark. Much less interesting than the song with Jonathan Davis.

The third of these songs is "Smashed", with Frank Mullen of Suffocation on guest vox. Thank god this song is faster, otherwise this would have been very boring. Frank's first section is at the 0:22 mark. He ends some lines already sang by resident vocalist Mitch Lucker and in places, screams together with him. The song as a whole starts out interesting, but gets less so as the song goes on until it finally ends with a stupid breakdown.

As the remaining two songs play out, some anomalies in the otherwise boring deathcore slowness includes the inclusion of acoustic guitar on "The Only Thing That Sets Us Apart" and one more fast, yet still uninteresting song titled "Cancerous Skies".

Suicide Silence had a pretty bad rep in the past, and their 2011 offering does little to influence me to discharge the detractors. The Black Crown is no crown jewel.