Deathcore stars Suicide Silence had a mission statement while writing their seventh album. “We went by ‘HAP’—heavy as possible,” guitarist Mark Heylmun tells Apple Music. “I feel like that’s the goal of all our records, but on this one we all agreed what heavy meant. We’ve done seven albums, and it’s always apparent when we’re done that some people wanted more of this, and some people wanted more of that. I still can’t believe we were all on the same page in the same book.” The album title was inspired by the Latin phrase memento mori. “I was reading Latin poetry, which has all these phrases that have been said for thousands of years,” Heylmun explains. “Memento mori basically means ‘remember death.’ It’s not a concept album, but a lot of the lyrics were inspired by this poetry about death and mortality. And Remember… You Must Die sounded hard as hell.” Below, he comments on each track. “Remember…” “It’s an intro. There’s a little poem in there that has lyrics that are in the next song. It’s a little preview of some of the concept in that. Really, it’s just to set the pace and get it started. It was a fun thing to put together. There’s actual guitars in there, and it’s an actual performance.” “You Must Die” “This is a classic ripper. Before we called it ‘You Must Die,’ it was called ‘Ass Beater.’ It’s no-frills, not trying to impress anybody. The wheel was already invented, and we’re just rolling on it. Songs like this are the ones that write themselves, and it’s still a mystery how that even happens. It’s just one of those songs that came naturally.” “Capable of Violence (N.F.W.)” “That’s an old-school death-metal-influenced song melded with old-school deathcore components. It’s a blend of the two influences that, I think, were umbrellaing this whole process, which is old-school death metal, which we all love, and what came to be called deathcore, which is basically just what we sound like.” “Fucked for Life” “This is my favorite song on the record, I think. ‘Fucked for Life’ is Suicide Silence 2023. It embodies what I feel like we always try to put out, which is positively negative. Even though the title makes it sound like it’s a negative song, it has a positive side. It’s basically saying, ‘Yeah, you’re fucked for life, but just let it be. Don’t try to fight the fact that shit’s fucked.’” “Kill Forever” “This song is all about speed and being gnarly. If you want to listen to our new drummer Ernie [Iniguez] and what he’s capable of, that song is a single take. There’re no drum edits. It’s a solid display of insane drumming.” “God Be Damned” “This is death metalcore meets moody black metal. I think we stepped out of our comfort zone on this, and I’ve heard people say it almost sounds Black Dahlia [Murder]-ish. The dark and moody elements are something that we’ve never really done before. It’s a song that I’m particularly proud of and also afraid to play live because it’s fucking fast.” “Alter of Self” “This is as symphonic as you’re going to hear Suicide Silence. There’re no keyboards in it, but I would joke and say, ‘Dimmu Borgir called, and they want their style back’ about this one. It’s also got this insane breakdown at the end. At one point, I wanted this song off the album. But then we trimmed the fat and started working on the vocals, and it really popped. Then we thought it was so good, it became a single.” “Endless Dark” “This is just a thrashing groove that doesn’t really let you rest. It’s a short banger, and it’s got a guest guitar solo from Kyle Rasmussen from Vitriol. But it’s funny because everyone who listens to it thinks it’s me because he and I both have this wild style. I did a guitar solo for it originally, and what Kyle ended up doing is so similar—and I didn’t tell him what to do.” “The Third Death” “The third death is when no one speaks your name anymore. That’s your final death—you’re forgotten. The name was inspired by a piece of art that I got with the same title. I thought it was an interesting name, so I read about it, and it ended up being the theme for the lyrics of this song.” “Be Deceived” “This is basically nu-metal deathcore. To me, that opening is so Korn—it sounds like something off their first album. That’s a [Chris] Garza riff, and it was also one of the first tracks that we were working on for this album. As far as the lyrics, it’s an observation about people that just believe everything they read and everything they see. It’s a response to the divisiveness of the media in every sector of everything, especially during the pandemic. We try not to do too much political stuff, but this is about as political as we get.” “Dying Life” “This song was written with Alex Lopez, our old drummer. It was actually tracked by him, but we had Ernie retrack it. So, if it’s got a different vibe than the rest of the album, I would say that’s why. It’s also the first song we wrote that’s all in 3/4 time, which is very old-school Cannibal Corpse or Slayer. It’s got that pirate jig to it.” “Full Void” “This song was fully written around one riff that was just so good. It’s the Hungarian minor riff, if there’s theory people out there that like scales and whatnot. I’ve had that riff for so long, and there were at least three other versions of this song before we got to this one. It’s semi-conceptual and, dare I say, artsy.”