Pierced from Within by Suffocation ****

  A Good One to Add to the Collection.

Holy smokes!  This band has chops.  I have grown out of my death metal phase, but if you are into death metal, or just looking to have a more complete musical collection, this is a great album.  It takes some time to be able to distinguish one song from another, and there is little difference between Pierced from Within and Effigy of the Forgotten.  Suffocation is somewhat paradoxical.  They put a lot of effort into their songs, such that there isn’t a whole lot of repetition.  That much I like.  However, I find this album and Effigy somewhat flawed in that they come across as sounding too one dimensional despite the amount of combinations of rhythms and notes.  Some people like that though.  There is not much diversity of the color of songs.  Like they said on the DOD Death Metal distortion pedal manual, “We cranked up the distortion and then ripped off the knob.”  If you get one colorless death metal album, I recommend this one.