Brain Drill "Apocalyptic Feasting"

Tracklist: 01. Gorification 02. The Parasites 03. Apocalyptic Feasting 04. Swine Slaughter 05. Forcefed Human Shit 06. Consumed By The Dead 07. Revelation 08. Bury The Living 09. The Depths Of Darkness 10. Sadistic Abductive Release: 2008 Genre: Technical Death Metal URL: www.myspace.com/braindrill Label: www.metalblade.de

Brain Drill from California had already the honor to appear in a review in our online zine with their "The Parasites" EP a few years ago. At that time, the band was able to call much attention through their very technical stuff which was played fast as hell. Apparently everything went so great for the band that they where able to receive a deal with Metal Blade Records, to release their first full length album "Apocalyptic Feasting". Connoisseurs of the band will directly notice that neither Brain Drill nor Metal Blade made an effort to put out a mainstream metal album. Here and now the new songs sound way more extreme than on the older stuff in my opinion. Exceptionally extreme can not be equated with better here. Well, what the band made on this album will definitely amaze many musicians but it does not mean that the music sounds good. Especially the massively exaggerated use of arpeggios and guitar tappings creates a pure chaotic character and does not allow any listening pleasure for me. I must confess that the song material here is really hard to play and it will make sure that no band on this planet will cover a Brain Drill song spontaneous. But what's the use of all that technical skills if you aren't able to do the basic facts right? With basic facts I mean the ability to write interesting music which is not only very fast and technically. I can't claim that I've found any song, part or riff able to stick in my mind. But such a thing isn't easily arranged if you have a guitar player shredding his strings in an incredible speed. According to his style drummer Marco Pitruzella who's known for playing drums in nearly every fast Death Metal band is operating on the same level. Here again you have to admit that his blast beats and gravity blasts are really played very well, accurate and fast as hell. But unfortunately the whole drum kit sounds so triggered and synthetic that you can think everything has been played using an electronic drum kit. There is not much to say about the vocals because they consist only of roared growling and annoying screams. That was already exactly the point I had at that time criticized on their EP. So you can't find any brutal sounding guttural vocals here. Well I can live with that if one is able to arrange a good singer who sounds more individually. Personally I think the bass player has done the best job here. He is playing in the best Alex Webster (Cannibal Corpse, Hate Eternal, Blotted Science) style here. During the whole playtime you can discern the bass guitar very good and he's also able to impress as a solo player. So the bass guitar then is probably one of the extremely rare good elements on this record. But let's get back to the negative points again. The following fact on "Apocalyptic Feasting" is an unbounded cheek for me: the fact that all songs from their 2006 released EP "The Parasites" have been re-recorded and put on this record here. So with just a playtime of 35 minutes you can divine how many new songs are really on this full length album. If a band like Severed Savior or Deeds Of Flesh is re-recording an older song for their newer outputs then it's mostly ok in my opinion but recycling a complete EP is just bold. Especially as this here is a full length album and not something like a Best Of compilation. In my opinion this album is a total disaster; although the band seems to be very fit when it comes to technical stuff it is really a pity that everything is getting lost in a chaos of tabs. Also the sound production is as expected for this kind of music, very clean and synthetic. I really hope that this generally musically minus development with its flight of fancy and stupid faster brutal technical competition will end very soon. If not then I don't see a bright future for this scene. Even though I like to listen to technical Death Metal I would like to be able to find something within the music I can call song writing which I couldn't really detect on this full length album here. Perhaps some fans of Beneath The Massacre could be pleased with the newest output coming from Brain Drill but it has not satisfied me in any kind. The cover artwork from Par Olofsson is probably still the best point on this album, but good old Par has been abused for so many cover artworks in the mean time that a certain effect of fatigue has crept in. There is nothing more to say yet. Decide for yourself if you really want to spend your money for such a bad output.

Rating: 40 % | from Gore | Date: 08.07.09 | Time: 23:30	shut down