Live Review: Suffocation – Manchester

It’s been a little over a year since New York’s finest brutalists last visited Manchester, with a ripping show in the basement of the Academy complex. This evening, Suffocation have been literally elevated, to the top of the building following a venue switch from Academy 2. To me, the old Hop & Grape is a far more fitting room in which to see these legends strutting their stuff.

However, as with last year, Suffocation have brought along a substantial supporting cast, beginning with Australian deathcore outfit, Mélancolia, whose take on extreme music finds them mixing elements of gothic, black and death metals into their sound. Their HissThroughRottenTeeth album is a couple of years old now yet still manages to impress by the blending of styles and genres.

Fuming Mouth made their UK debut as recently as November 2024, across town at the Bowler’s Exhibition Centre at the Damnation Festival. They must have liked the cut of Manchester’s jib as they are making a speedy return to town. Purveyors of crust-infused death metal, the band excel at combining punishing percussion with razor-sharp guitars.

Canadians, AngelMaker have a distinctly progressive sound to their deathcore, utilising the whole range of the musical ability at their disposal, theirs is a three guitar, dual vocal approach, resulting in some of the most bombastic music of the genre. The switching of second vocalist from long-time singer, Mike Greenwood to former Rings of Saturn belter, Ian Bearer does not appear to have slowed the band down at all and, whether it be A Dark Omen or the closer, Leech from the debut, or the tunes from the more prominent last record, Sanctum, these Canuks are here to shatter the illusion that being from the Great White North means they are a sweet and kindly group. Like fellow Canadian deathcore merchants, Despised Icon, who shared the stage with the equally brutal Dying Fetus last December, AngelMaker have their sights set on destruction and are firing on all cylinders.

Life the proverbial buses, you wait for years for Suffocation to come to Manchester and then two gigs happen close together. New vocalist, Ricky Myres had big shoes to fill when taking over from Frank Mullen, and a year of relentless touring has sharpened that cutting edge even more than in 2024.

Almost-ever-present guitar man, Terrance Hobbs has been waving the Suffocation flag since 1990 and what he doesn’t know about crafting brutally efficient and technically devastating death metal is hardly worth knowing. And there’s no one better placed to guide us all through the maze of the band’s back-catalogue.

The set for tonight’s show is close to being the same collection of songs Suffocation brought last time. Omitted are the oldies and classics, Breeding the Spawn and Pierced from Within, and Hymns’ Dim Veil of Obscurity, with only the set closer of Entrails of You being aired anew.

But the band have so many classic death metal ditties that when the choice is barely a dozen, it makes including all of the fan-favourites a difficult task.

Thrones of Blood opens the show, followed by Hymn from the Apocrypha’s Seraphim Enslavement in a reversal of the show last February; debut title track, Effigy of the Forgotten’s meaty chug and guttural growls reminds us that the band haven’t been influenced by trends and have remained steadfastly on their original track; Funeral Inception still burns and rages, as Hymns to the Apocrypha itself again sits comfortably alongside Catatonia, the first song written by Suffocation all the way back in the Eighties.

Clarity through Deprivation carries with it an unmistakeable groove, Perpetual Deception is a beatdown, pure and simple and Liege of Inveracity is credited to have been responsible for the whole damn genre.

There’s no encore as such, just the blistering race through Infecting the Crypts into set finale, Entrails of You’s grooving and cacophonous mayhem.

It does not matter that the bulk of tonight’s set was played last year – no one seems to care when AC/DC does it! All that matters is whether Suffocation (or DC) put on a good show. In either case, that’s always a big fat Yes!