There are records that open like a wound, slow and deliberate, letting the sickness seep into the bloodstream before the real agony begins — Things Seen But Always Hidden is one of them. Suffering don’t erupt so much as they unfurl, dragging you downward in a tightening spiral of dread and revelation. Before a single blast-beat detonates, the atmosphere is already suffocating, already hostile, already whispering that escape isn’t on the table. This is a band that understands the power of restraint — not as softness, but as tension, ritual, and cruelty delayed.
Because make no mistake: when Suffering strike, they strike like iron descending on bone.
Their second full-length is the sound of a band no longer testing the boundaries of their craft but dragging their sharpened talons across the limit, widening it, forcing it to bleed. Throughout these eight tracks, Suffering prove that Black Metal doesn’t have to be a straight sprint toward oblivion. It can be a calculated descent. A controlled demolition. A slow, methodical punishment where speed is one weapon among many — not the whole arsenal.
The record thrives on structure, on pacing, on knowing exactly when to let the pressure build and when to drop the hammer. The riffs don’t feel stitched together; they feel carved. Every shift has weight. Every moment is precisely where it needs to be. Suffering’s mastery lies not in overwhelming you, but in cornering you — in tightening the ritual circle until all light is extinguished and all that remains is the sound of your breath turning shallow.
When the band does unleash their full power, it’s nothing short of catastrophic. Blast-beats tear across the soundscape like ritual whips cracking through shadowed halls. Tremolo lines rise like black flames licking the ceiling of some underground sanctum. There’s fury here, no doubt — but it’s fury with intention. Controlled violence. Not endless speed for the sake of proving stamina, but speed wielded like a scalpel: targeted, strategic, lethal.
And that’s the great triumph of Things Seen But Always Hidden: it understands that extremity means nothing without contrast. The slower, heavier passages hit with the weight of a burning cathedral collapsing in slow motion. The mid-paced sections are dripping with occult grandeur — thick, oppressive, ritualistic. These are the moments where Suffering’s sense of atmosphere becomes undeniable. You don’t just hear the album; you enter it. You walk its halls. You feel the left-hand path beneath your feet. You breathe in the incense and smoke. You become part of whatever rite is taking place behind the veil.
Vocally, Suffering operate in a register that blurs the line between sermon and exorcism. These aren’t the shrieks of a genre going through the motions — they are proclamations, invocations, the guttural roar of a presence speaking through the vessel. Every line feels delivered with intent, as though chanted by a figure standing at the threshold between worlds. This is Black Metal that uses voice as weapon and invocation simultaneously.
The guitars, meanwhile, shift seamlessly between jagged aggression and grand, sweeping occult melodies. There’s an almost liturgical quality to the harmonies — like hymns warped and inverted, dragged through sulfur and shadow. They often build slowly, layering pressure upon pressure, before exploding into chaos or collapsing into doom-laden heaviness. This dynamic range is what elevates the record beyond mere ferocity. It becomes narrative. It becomes a journey.
The drumming deserves particular praise. Not for sheer speed — though the speed, when it comes, is devastating — but for discipline. This is percussion that guides. It shapes the movement of the album like a ritual heartbeat, shifting between controlled pulse and frenzied attack with total precision. The drummer knows when to suffocate and when to flay, and both are delivered with merciless clarity.
Taken as a whole, Things Seen But Always Hidden feels like an ascent through circles of revelation and ruin. Each track deepens the descent. Each passage opens a new chamber of torment. By the end, the album hasn’t just shown you Hell — it’s walked you through every corridor, let you touch the walls still warm with damnation.
Suffering have not merely delivered another entry in the swelling tide of Occult Black Metal releases. They’ve carved out their throne room. They’ve sharpened their identity. They’ve proven that atmosphere, violence, structure, and intent can all coexist without one dulling the edge of the other.
This is a band operating with purpose. With vision. With fire.
And this album proves they’re ready to drag the whole genre deeper into the abyss with them.
Things Seen But Always Hidden by Suffering is available November 28th via Apocalyptic Witchcraft.
CHOICE CUT: The Chamber of Breathtaking Delights
BLACK METAL ARCHIVES VERDICT: Things Seen But Always Hidden is a towering slab of ritualistic Black Metal—a disciplined, punishing, and atmospheric descent carved with precision and delivered with absolute conviction. Suffering don’t just write songs; they perform rites. They summon. They unveil. They burn.
PRESS SOURCE: Imperative PR.
