Review of Suppressive Fire - Bedlam

Suppressive Fire is a new, slightly blackened 3 piece death/thrash metal band from North Carolina, and while I’ve never been a huge fan of black/thrash, Suppressive Fire lean a little more to the thrash side and their war laden themes and imagery had me more intrigued than I usually would be with something this style.

With song title like “Bayonet Penetration”, “Ceasefire”, “Iron Sights” and “Nazi Face Melter”, there’s no mistaking the band’s stylings and the music does a decent job of portraying the warring themes. The music is a nastier form of Teutonic thrash (Sodom, Kreator etc), not the happier bay Area sound, or a forced retro sound and there is just a light flick of black metal my way of some raspier vocals and some of the more aggressive blasts. But this is mostly a thrash record, and pretty good one at that.

Hitting the 43 minute sweet spot, the aptly named Bedlam drops 11 actual songs, no intros , ballads or interludes of tight, high octane, sneering riffs and militant marches, all without the ususal black thrash cheese, beer ‘n’ satan ‘n’ spikes visage. No partying or drinking anthems, just solid riffs, lots of solos and a no nonsense approach.  I can’t say that I’m entirely enamored, but the album has certainly kept my attention more than some of the retro thrash or black thrash out there recently. Tracks like “Coup D’Etat”, “Thy Flesh Consumed”, “Bayonet Penetration”, “Nazi Face Melter”  and favorites “Pyrophoric Blood”  and “Ironsights’ certainly got my neck snapping a little bit. The production helps being modern and crisp but with  little old school bite.

A solid release and Suppressive Fire would a perfect fit for a label like Unspeakable Axe (Dark Descent’s old school sub label) where they would reside next to the likes of Sadistic Ritual, Trenchrot and Insanity.