Davey Suicide: Worldwide Suicide

It’s a little unfortunate that Davey Suicide is releasing a record following the death of Robin Williams given his name, but it is what it is, I suppose. So here we have Suicide’s sophomore album, Worldwide Suicide, and you know what it reminds me of? Marilyn Manson. Here’s the thing, though: Marilyn Manson stopped being shocking sometime around the Columbine massacre, and basically became a scapegoat for disaffected youth. I recall a story in The Onion that had Manson going around door to door asking people if they found him remotely offensive anymore. The stock answer was, “No.” So Suicide is going down a well worn trail in a world where very little is shocking and all sorts of deviant behaviour is more or less mainstream, to a point. It should come as no surprise then that Worldwide Sucide is hardly provocative. In fact, it’s on the annoying side. Can anyone be affected by this mish-mash of industrial, shock rock, emo, and metal? Not me. Not really.

Worldwide Sucide does have its share of propulsive cuts, and none is more enjoyable than the stop-start pull of the title track. But, the deeper you get into this album, the more and more that it basically begins to sound the same – making Davey Suicide something of a one-trick pony. The album is enjoyable musically despite the lack of sonic deviation, but Suicide’s attempts to truly shock leave something to be desired. In fact, in the same way that Manson covered the Eurythmics, one of the songs kind of sounds like “Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)” crossed with White Zombie. The path is well worn. And then there’s this spoken word bit from a female voice midway through the album: “When killing them with kindness doesn’t work, use a fucking machete.” Bwah-ha-ha-ha! I suppose that wasn’t the reaction that the band was hoping to get. Essentially, Worldwide Suicide is a record for teenagers too young to appreciate Manson and his entourage, and are looking for something to direct their angst at. Everyone else? Well, unless you can tolerate the stock riffs and lack of musical deviation, and there is a time and a place for that, true, you might want to give Davey Suicide and his band a wide berth, so they can continue down the road that has already been trailblazed and cleared by Marilyn Manson.