BRUTUS - Murwgebeukt
February 22, 2016, 8 years ago
(Willowtip)
Not a good backstory here, this Netherlands-based band releasing their debut in 2003 then mainman Maarten Luysterburg taking his own life in 2006. Here, the members reconvene and attempt to deal with the situation in the best way possible: a huge piece of pure death metal, using lyrics and a concept left behind from Luysterburg. It definitely gives the album an air of significance, even if the tunes are fairly rote almost-tech death metal. But the band also has their toes dipped in the swirling metal of death, somewhere between the extremity of Portal and the sewers of Incantation, a sound that packs more punch both sonically and emotionally than the labyrinthine technical death we've all become desensitized to.
So here songs like the excellent “Verbolgen” and “Vulvanus”, two album highlights, show the band has tech skills but just opt to use them in more subtle ways, the guys even almost settling into a groove now and then but mainly just choosing to pummel, pummel, pummel, paying homage to a fallen brother and laying down some great modern death metal as they do it. I could certainly live with this 55-minute album being about 20 minutes shorter (and it would hit even harder if it were shorter), but, hey, it's been a decade, and they've been through a lot, we'll cut 'em some slack.
