Suffer Yourself - Rip Tide

SUFFER YOURSELF - Rip Tide (AESTHETIC DEATH - CD 2021)

Only recently I've finished the listening session of "Omniversal Existence" by Funeral Chasm, which was one of the very few occasions for me to spin some utterly slow and mournful doom metal. And now Suffer Yourself knocks the lid of the coffin with their album - also released by Aesthetic Death. The path of this band goes through three countries - Ukraine, Poland and Sweden - which is something quite unusual. And "Rip Tide" is Suffer Yourself's third album, but I have absolutely no knowledge of the band's past efforts. Not a problem. I can always listen to them on YouTube, right? I may even give them a chance, because "Rip Tide" is pretty interesting piece of funeral doom. 

Obviously Suffer Yourself don't turn the funeral doom metal genre upside down and you will find here many rather typical aspects of that music. Yes, the sorrowful, agonizing atmosphere with damn sloooow tempo and brute growl are all here. Yes, there is absolutely nothing positive nor happy in this music. It is as miserable as one can bare. But on the other hand, once or twice that slow pace is broken and more brutal riffage can appear. Which is cool, obviously, especially in the twenty minutes long monolith "Spit in the Chasm", which definitely asked for more variety and I am happy to find it in this song. Ha, there's even a violin in one fragment. Interestingly, on the other occasion, the music takes a bit more experimental and avantgarde road. Its nice to hear something different then. Another thing, which I like a lot is that "Rip Tide" is a little over thirty minutes long only. That way you will never get bored with the music. I sometimes hate to hear sixty minutes long doom albums, which are asking for a pillow and are just hard to get through in one take. Suffer Yourself music is more dynamic and is not tiring at all, which is just good. Yeah, even if it's not an outstanding album, I think it is very decent and interesting.

Verdict: 70/100