It took a long time for Suffer to release their debut album. From having formed around 1990 to releasing konQbine in 2015, they had plenty of time to ferment in their admitted influences of Carcass, Death, Morbid Angel, and Napalm Death. In sampling their body of work, you get a view of how they have mixed and matched these influences over the years, starting out with some generally competent 90’s death metal, to the raw Carcass meets Entombed of the Instruments of Grace EP and the dialing up of the Carcass influence around their debut album (released just two years after Surgical Steel). Grand Canvas of the Aestethe sees no love lost on Heartwork-isms thickened with the slime of grooves straight out of Morbid Angel‘s Domination. When these two styles mix together successfully like the rasping vocal cadence over the grand death metal groove in “Human Primal Cuts” or “Plentiful • Copious • Bountiful” causes whiplash between start-stop riffing and an Entombed-like punk pummeling, the music cuts with precision. Suffer‘s sophomore album feels slick in both writing and production, being sharp enough to cut yet flowing from moment to moment with its cushioning rhythms. For anyone wishing that Carcass would not have went down the death ‘n’ roll route of Torn Arteries, Grand Canvas of the Aesthete provides a lot of incentive to listen.
Yet for how much I like this album for what it tries to be, I still find myself torn. A personal annoyance of mine is when people reduce artists or albums down to “Oh, they’re just a copy of this band…”. As reductive as this style of critique is, it becomes an unavoidable point of discussion when a band like Suffer walks the uneasy line between homage and pastiche as they do here. Vocalist Chad Petit does a pitch perfect job with his vocal cadence and rasp/growl dynamic, coming particularly close to Jeff Walker and Bill Steer. The dual harmonized guitar moments in “Carnal Flesh Parade” and “Pernicious Precarious Mess” also echo Carcass, as does the choice of the choice of images that grace the Instruments of Grace EP and Demos 1989-1994 collection. I find this a slightly depressing turn from listening to that particular EP as it has a raw sound where the influences are clear, but the music also sounds like its own thing. It’s hard to not be pulled along when songs like “The Fetching Cranley Gardens” hits you with a snarling attack and bumble bee-winding riffs, but this is after being distracted by the sample that tries to mimic the sampled intros on Carcass‘ Necrotisism. I come away feeling like Grand Canvas of the Aesthete paints on a much smaller canvas than they could, and with way too few colors than they should. If you’re on the hunt for something new that pleasantly echoes your favorites of the past you might want to pick this up. But this niche of a genre also has bands like Exhumed, who do a far better job at reminding us why this style of metal is great while also producing music that has its own identity.
