In the green room beneath the stage of Melbourne’s Forum Theatre, the energy is exhausted, yet exhilarated. For Perth metalcore group Make Them Suffer, this particular show in early September marks the halfway point of their largely sold out Australian headline tour.
Coming off the back of an intense European festival run, as well as a successful North American tour and a lucrative spot supporting Bring Me the Horizon at the top of 2024, Make Them Suffer’s return to Australia in the second half of this year proved a triumphant victory lap.
But back to that green room.
Post-show, it is sweaty; tired smiles spread across band members’ faces as adrenaline levels begin to even out after what had been a full throttle headline set mere moments before.
It is full of animated conversation, largely surrounding the size of the production itself, a mammoth fusion of visuals, pyro and sound that positions Make Them Suffer in the same lanes as bands like Alpha Wolf and Polaris when it comes to Australian-made heavy music currently elevating their vision and expanding their scope.
View this post on Instagram
It’s the perfect way for Make Them Suffer to prepare for the release of their fifth studio album, a self-titled project that showcases the band at their most ambitious and most definitive yet.
Out now, Make Them Suffer is a collection of metalcore material primed for global stages. The band swung big with this project and with the swells of tracks including “Doomswitch” and “Oscillator”; through to the unflinching nature of “Mana God”, “Epitaph”, and “Ghost of Me”, Make Them Suffer satiate a desire for pushing themselves further than before.
Crowds who have seen Make Them Suffer perform throughout 2024 will have gotten lashings of insights into this new chapter for the band – led by frontman Sean Harmanis, Make Them Suffer, as a creative unit, shine with chemistry bolstered by Jaya Jeffery (bass), Nick McLernon (guitar), Jordan Mather (drums), and Alex Reade (keyboards, vocals).
The addition of Reade to the lineup in 2022 signalled a new direction for Make Them Suffer, a direction that the listener hears flourish with rejuvenated intensity on their new album.
“There’s been a few different iterations of Make Them Suffer,” Harmanis says, speaking to Rolling Stone AU/NZ days after returning from China, where they played the 2024 Eastsea Metal Festival.
“Over the years, we’ve done a lot of experimenting with different sounds too. I think all the pieces felt like they came together and aligned for this record. Everyone was feeling that as well. This is easily our best work so far. We’re all really proud of it.”
Five albums in, Make Them Suffer obviously know their way around a recording studio; they know the type of energy their music manifests. Yet with a new lineup in place and new ideas beginning to permeate their creative process, it became evident that something was shifting with the writing dynamic of this album.
As Harmanis remembers, things crystallised for him during the writing of album track “Weaponized”. The last lyric on the track, fittingly, is “make them suffer” – a moment during writing that made things click for the songwriter.
After having been on this journey with his bandmates for so many years, navigating many sonic changes, this was an affirming moment for Harmanis. The direction Make Them Suffer were to head with this new music became clear.
“The last lyric on the [second] track of the album, it just makes sense,” he says. “At that point, we were all feeling like something very special was happening in the studio. We were all very high on the tracks!”
“The energy of the band in general; everyone was just excited to be in Make Them Suffer, excited for the things that were happening for the band, in terms of our career and the trajectory of everything. Deciding to make the album self-titled, that was when we were like, ‘Yeah, this album is going to be sick.’”
The trajectory was almost stunted completely, though. In 2023, Make Them Suffer released a remastered version of their debut album, Neverbloom, for its tenth anniversary, but there had been no new album since 2020’s How Tto Survive a Funeral.
Admitting that there was a time prior to the release of “Doomswitch” in 2022 where the band had discussed stopping altogether, Harmanis reflects on what has kept Make Them Suffer persevering and chasing satisfaction.
“When we saw that people were still excited about the band, and people were still listening from way back in 2010, 2012, it was like, ‘Alright, this is it.’ We have to strike while the iron is hot and just give it our all.
“We’ve honed our craft over the course of 15 years and our songwriting has really improved. We’re now in a really happy space; everyone’s really stoked on it. This has amalgamated itself in the songs on this album.”
For newcomers to Make Them Suffer, Harmanis grins at the thought of new fans associating this self-titled effort with their first exposure to the band. From his perspective, it’s a smart move.
“That’s another reason why we were very happy to give this the self-titled name as well,” he says. “If someone is checking out a band for the first time, they might check out the self-titled one first. For us, this is a great gateway album to Make Them Suffer; these songs are the coolest for a first time listener of the band. They will understand what we’re all about.”
Make Them Suffer’s self-titled fifth album is out now.
