Suffocation - Breeding the Spawn

Suffocation's Breeding the Spawn is an album that needs no introduction to fans of death metal. It has been heralded by many as one of death metal's crowing achievements. The hype is well deserved, as this is one inimitable masterpiece. So why then is it not on the Morsay List? Well, it sort of suffers from having been made by Suffocation. Had Breeding the Spawn been made by any other death metal band, it would likely have been included. But in this case, it is unjustly compared to other Suffocation albums instead of other death metal albums by other bands. And herein lies this album's only flaw: it doesn't live up to Suffocation's majestic debut Effigy of the Forgotten.

In fact, it feels like Suffocation were all too aware of the groundbreaking and trailblazing nature of their debut, and decided to make an album that continues on the path set by Effigy of the Forgotten, and builds upon it by making it more brutal, more technical, and more intense. They succeeded, and Breeding the Spawn is recognized by all as a masterpiece of the genre. The problem is that in doing so, they made an album that's paradoxically both phenomenal death metal, as was Effigy of the Forgotten, and formulaic. Breeding the Spawn sees Suffocation attempt to codify and mold into a formula what made their debut so breathtaking, and in doing so remove a lot of its mystique and spontaneity.

Easily some of the best death metal ever recorded, yet falls just short of being ranked amongst the likes of Withdrawal, Onward to Golgotha and... Effigy of the Forgotten. Breeding the Spawn remains, however, a masterpiece of the genre.

Back to Suffocation