UMUR "Hymns from the Apocrypha" is the ninth full-length studio album by US, New York based death metal act Suffocation. The album was released through Nuclear Blast in November 2023. It´s the successor to "...Of The Dark Light" (Nuclear Blast, June 2017), although the two full-length studio albums are bridged by the November 2021 "Live in North America" live album. "Live in North America" is a live album marking a significant change in the history of Suffocation, as it´s a recording of original lead vocalist Frank Mullen´s last show from October 2018 before he retired from Suffocation. He is replaced on "Hymns from the Apocrypha" by Ricky Myers. Myers who is also known as the drummer of Disgorge, had been touring with Suffocation in the periods 2014-2016, 2018-2019, as Mullen already at that point couldn´t dedicate enough time to Suffocation anymore. Myers for example did all European shows in those periods. So choosing Myers as the replacement for the legendary Mullen was of course a no-brainer.

Stylistically the material on "Hymns from the Apocrypha" is no surprise if you´re familiar with the preceding releases by Suffocation. If they´ve evolved since the last album it´s details, and Suffocation still sounds unmistakably like they´ve pretty much done since their inception in the early 90s. Brutal/technical death metal featuring multible breaks, changes of pace, brutal thrash oriented riffing, a high level of technical playing, and a brutality level way over the average for the genre. Myers does a good job replacing Mullen although the latter did have a more personal and distinct sounding growling style. The music is spiced up with the occasional lead guitar moment (which are nice for the variation and they are well done too), but as always it´s all about producing the most heavy and brutal music around.

Back when Suffocation first emerged there was pretty much no competition (at least not anyone able to match their level of brutality), but a lot of water has run under the bridge since then, and today brutal/technical death metal bands come a dime a dozen. So in that respect "Hymns from the Apocrypha" isn´t anymore brutal than a lot of other contemporary bands and releases, but Suffocation have the advantage of experience and writing this type of music for 30 years, and when you listen to the album those factors are audible. As on most Suffocation releases variation between tracks is a slight issue, but it´s to be expected with music as brutal as this.

As it´s almost become custom on Suffocation´s releases (starting already on "Pierced from Within" from 1995) they´ve also this time around re-recorded a song from their second album "Breeding the Spawn" (1993) and included it on the tracklist (with Mullen guesting on vocals). This time "Ignorant Deprivation". It may seem odd for a death metal band to re-record tracks from a particular album and include them on the tracklists on several of their subsequent releases (instead of just re-recording the full album and release it, if they feel so bad about the original sound production), but Suffocation have always been able to include the re-recorded tracks in a seamless way and make them fit perfectly with the new original material. It´s pretty much just another testimony to the fact that Suffocation have stayed true to their roots and their sound throughout their career.

"Hymns from the Apocrypha" features a powerful, sharp, and detailed sound production, and although my ears don´t always agree with the clicky metallic bass sound, that´s a subjective observation, and objectively this is a good quality sound production. A 3.5 - 4 star (75%) rating is deserved.