I knew it would be difficult for Suffocation to top the self-titled effort. The New Yorkers do try on Blood Oath, but the result is somewhat disappointing. The band try a few new things now and then so it's not like the music are idealess, but the song-writing does seem a bit uninspired at times.

It mostly shows in form of the music not having the same weight as on Suffocation. It's like the Americans are more restrained in terms of brutality and it does affect the music in a negative way. I miss a little more in-your-face brutality to even things out.

However it's not like Blood Oath is a bad effort and Suffocation do show lots of good things on "Pray for Forgiveness", "Images of Purgatory" and "Mental Haemorrhage" as well as on "Provoking the Disturbed" and the re-recorded "Martial Decimation", but it's like the vitality is more or less gone on songs like "Blood Oath", "Dismal Dream" and "Undeserving".

No doubt that Suffocation's music is tight, intricate and with lots of interesting changeups, but Blood Oath is not as exciting as some of the New Yorkers other works. For that the song-writing is too uneven. Frank Mullen is as good as always. His vocals are understandable, but have that snarl that makes it brutal.

Unlike many others I liked the beefy and muddy production that the self-titled effort had. It made the music more compact and fat sounding. This is somewhat a problem on Blood Oath. The production is a little too clean for this kind of music and it does make the music appear a little flat and tame. The sound alone is not to blame, but it does have its share.

Blood Oath is far from what I hoped it would be, but despite of its shortcomings it's not that bad after all.