Metalium – Suffer

It was 1970 when Heavy Metal was created by four young people from working-class families in Birmingham and hit the shelves. Young people, who saw their parents working under very harsh conditions from morning to night, rejected this monotonous life, did not want to share the same fate, and with this new thing they created with the limited resources they had, they managed to introduce a genre into the musical literature that would evolve over the years and become the father of countless subgenres. Therefore, metal, which can be described as music of rebellion is surely one of the most convenient types of music to deal with social issues, corrupt world order, dirty politicians, environmental problems, etc.

Especially in recent years, as I have seen the state of our world, I have felt the need to listen to such message-concerned things more and more. Metalium does exactly that on this album.

Metalium, as old listeners know better, is a band that performs thrash metal. It is also one of the oldest bands in Türkiye, along with The Pentagram (Use name Mezarkabul outside Türkiye). After their first demo, the band renewed its lineup, except for founder Mazhar Şiringöz, and released its first album in 1990, and its second album in 1995, 5 years later, again with lineup changes. The group gave concerts after Suffer and then disbanded. I think it was last year, they came together again for a gig.

Anyway, let’s get back to the album. The band perform aggressive thrash metal with a bit of death metal influences – especially the vocals. The music could be compared not to bands like Exodus and Anthrax, but to more aggressive bands like Sadus. The album was released on cassette the same year it was released, but it was obvious that they had problems transferring the recordings to cassette because there are changes in volume levels throughout the album. On a few songs – especially the opening track, Denial – the sound is bumpy. First, I thought there was a problem with the cassette I had, but when I found and downloaded it in mp3 format from the internet to check it out, I encountered the same problem. But believe me, this does not take away anything from the soul of the music. No matter how you look at it, Metalium perform a rock hard fucking thrash here. And in addition, they add meaning to their music with lyrics covering social issues.

There is high quality musicianship in this short album, which lasts approximately 28 minutes. Hakan Savaser’s bass guitar tone kills. Mazhar’s vocals are full of soul. It’s hard to pick a favorite song because literally all the tracks are great. For those who will listen to it for the first time, I can recommend Circle Of Despair (the bass!!), Suffer and Social Desperation. Within the last track, band members are explaining how they called it quits in the past. To sum up, Metalium has created one of Turkiye’s best 2-3 thrash metal albums ever with Suffer. I strongly recommend this valuable album, which will be like a medicine in these dark days and enlighten you with brightness. Today, it’s possible to find it in CD format and streaming platforms. Last but not least, Old School is the very essence of life.

9/10