Brain Drill

Obsolete – Animate//Isolate Review

By Diabolus in Muzaka on April 20, 2021 in Reviews, Death Metal, Thrash Metal, 23 comments

“I’ve spent much of this year listening to Obituary and Mortician. Both are death metal, but death metal is a wide field and you can’t mistake either band’s sound for the other’s. To address this, we put bands into subgenres within a subgenre – Floridian death metal, for instance. This is nice because I don’t want to sift through a bunch of Entombed clones to find something like Monstrosity. What about when our subgenres within subgenres cease to be useful to describe a sound? Then we get stuff like slam, which is brutal death metal played a specific way – a subgenre of a subgenre within a subgenre. If you’re thinking that Obsolete’s debut Animate//Isolate will lead me down a sub-sub-sub-genre rabbit hole, go ahead and give yourself an executive producer credit.” Old tech.

Insect Inside – The First Shining of New Genus Review

By Dear Hollow on February 17, 2021 in Reviews, Death Metal, Technical Death Metal, 26 comments

“Slam is a style I’ve never understood. Often layered with gory shock novelty and the variety of deathcore, bands like Abominable Putridity and Epicardiectomy have only gotten a head-scratch from me with endless “djunz” and br00tal “eeeeees”. Insect Inside is a young Russian trio from Zlatoust, a demo and single released since their 2017 inception. Debut LP The First Shining of New Genus creates the soundtrack of being eaten alive by the swarm in its beatdown of groovy, thick riffs, and hell-scraping gutturals.” Slam beetles.

Caedes Cruenta – Of Ritual Necrophagia and Mysterious Ghoul Cults Review

By Dear Hollow on February 16, 2021 in Reviews, Black Metal, Melodic Death Metal, Thrash Metal, 15 comments

“To be honest, I’m not entirely sure where the line between black metal and blackened death lies. There’re folks who are entirely justified for crying “DEATH” when you add some bass to the mix, but others will be completely in the right to scold them for hopping a little too hard. Since groups like Belphegor and Marduk have blurred the lines with their bottom-heavy yet grim AF aesthetics, it’s a horde of near or far-sighted folks blurring everything.” Ghouls night ovt.

Continuum – Designed Obsolescence Review

By Diabolus in Muzaka on February 21, 2019 in 2019, American Metal, Reviews, Technical Death Metal, Unique Leader, Technical Death Metal, 115 comments

“The internet has created an interesting world where, no matter how esoteric what you do or like is, someone else is doing or enjoying the very same thing. On the one hand, this is great; it’s easier than ever to get recommendations on obscure Brazilian goregrind bands, because there’s a small online community devoted to just that. On the other hand, it’s a bit haunting to some types of people to be not whatsoever original in their tastes.” Fetish-tech.

Eschaton – Sentinel Apocalypse Review

By Kronos on May 30, 2015 in 2015, American Metal, Death Metal, Reviews, Unique Leader, Death Metal, 23 comments

“Longtime readers will have gleaned of my general distaste for the post–The Faceless tech death scene of modern times. While there are still a lot of cool acts out there producing great tech death that doesn’t stray into the territory of the growing dissonant/experimental death scene (more on this later), such as Origin and Archspire, there are even more bands jumping aboard the proverbial white fifteen-passenger van and opening up their very own, cash-only, cut-rate ramen emporiums.” Kronos is unhappy and somebody has to pay.