SWEET SPOT

June 21, 2024

Suffer The Evenue

SUFFER THE EVENUE
VOL. 2 SUPERDEADER

Zali, the more sensitive of my two dogs, is sitting under my table while I’m listening once again to Suffer The Evenue’s latest EP, Vol. 2 Superdeader, and putting my thoughts to paper (kind of). I’m not sure what that means. I don’t think she likes what she’s listening to.

“…the sound of a band that’s hitting its straps…”

Since the release of Brit slasher movie, Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey, last year I’ve been both disturbed and intrigued that creatives could take beloved and (mostly) benign figures from my childhood and turn them into something else entirely. I didn’t rush out to see the film, but if it pops up on a streaming platform somewhere, I might peek at it through one eye while holding onto a cushion. And that’s kind of how I’m listening to Vol. 2 Superdeader. You see, Suffer The Evenue have taken another childhood symbol of innocence, SuperTed no less, and turned him into Superdead on their first EP, Vol. 1 Superdead, and now we have Superdeader.

I don’t know what was going through the minds of the collective members of Suffer The Evenue as they made this music. They look like nice enough boys, if a little hirsute for my taste, but that sort of thing has never put me off before.

Vol. 2 Superdeader is a collection of four tracks that continue and progress the rap/metal tradition — strange to think the genre really has been around long enough now to be a tradition — and which showcases a band, in Suffer The Evenue, that has humour, heart and something that’s just out of my eyeline at the moment. Maybe I’d see it if I opened the other eye?

Hailing from Tarndanya/Adelaide, maybe it’s the Karrawirra Pari/Torrens water their beer is made from? But mostly, I think it’s the sound of a band that’s hitting its straps, in that sweet spot where all the other bands they’ve played in and the chemistry the members create from their current togetherness is beginning to become a bit of a behemoth.

The four tracks that comprise Vol. 2 Superdeader shift through the gears like a road train. They have heft, muscle, chromic shine and pump their particles into the air like there’s no future. What most impresses about these tracks is their pacing. Suffer The Evenue have resisted the urge to do everything all at once and their music draws the listener in with its nuanced vocal and instrumental arrangements. Yeah, it’s full on, but it’s layered and textured as well, and the songs invite the listener in to their nooks and crannies giving away more and more with each listen.

Lyrically, Suffer The Evenue also show on Vol. 2 Superdeader that they have the sort of deft touch that will have their growing legions of fans in no doubt as to the band’s intent, particularly with couplets like You’re building me up/Not breaking me down from ‘A New Empire’. I took a cultural excursion to see Cannibal Corpse some years ago and was more than a little concerned with how their, mostly male, audience received lyrical content that the band clearly intended to be humorous. Based on this offering, Suffer The Evenue will never be in danger of such mismatches.

As for killing SuperTed, maybe his time had come? I just love the conceptual audacity of what Suffer The Evenue did with that image and EP title. That’s a band meeting I would like to have been at. And, I can say this now, because Zali’s gone elsewhere in the house to bark at the world for a while, I really like what Suffer The Evenue are putting down with Vol. 2 Superdeader. They’re on point genre-wise, but unique as well, taking their music exactly where they want to take it. There’s a lot to like about that.