Brain Drill. Apocalyptic
Feasting. Those four words tell you all you need to know about this album.
Truly, with a name like Brain Drill and an album called Apocalyptic Feasting, you can bet that
this disc will not contain pop standards that are sung on ?American Idol? 10
years from now. Instead, just as the band?s name implies, Feasting is a brutal assault of the senses.
In fact, brutal really does not go far enough to describe
what these guys do. If Cannibal Corpse is brutal, then Brain Drill is the
soundtrack to the apocalypse. Brain Drill?s often-frantic take on the
death-grind genre (I am aware of the redundancy) may very well give listeners
indigestion.
The main source of possible discomfort comes from vocalist Steve
Rathjen. His main weapon of choice is the typical ?death grunt,? seen in the
vast majority of death-metal bands. That said, it is his other, um, ?voice?
that is noteworthy. Rathjen also employs a high-pitch screech, often used to
emphasize a particular lyric.
Case in point: Take what is perhaps the best track of the 10
here, ?Forcefed Human Shit.? When Rathjen screams (or whatever you might call
what he does) the title lyrics about the media, I am fairly sure that if played
loud enough, his voice alone will peel paint off a wall and perhaps take down
the very wall itself. The sound could reasonably be called inhuman. Hell, he may
very well have been possessed during the recording sessions.
My goal, however, is not to take away from the other three
spectacular musicians here. Marco Pitruzzella (drums), Dylan
Ruskin (guitars and chief songwriter) and Jeff Hughell (bass) all are in top
form on Feasting. Working as a single
unit, the trio is able to shift the direction of a 3-minute song multiple times
without losing beat.
Individually, these guys really shine. Pitruzzella
essentially plays blast beats for entire songs, during which his other hand
moves at superhuman speed all over his kit. Ruskin, however, seems most content
letting his fingers dance all around the frets, occasionally settling in for 20
or 30 seconds to play a riff before jumping right back into making his guitar
sound like a wounded animal. Hughell, though, seems to be the only one actually
anchoring the collective. That is to say, his playing is still frenzied, but it
seems that he may be the only one keeping the band from sonically tearing
itself apart.
If there is a downside to this record, it is the usual
complaint of the death-grind scene: Said bands only have two speeds ? ?fastest?
and ?holy shit.? Brain Drill is no different on Feasting. To a casual listener, five songs of death-grind can get excessive,
much less 10. That said, playing as fast as humanly possible (though parts of
this record suggest ?human? may not be the appropriate word) is really the
point of the band. This type of music was meant to be played in a dirty, overcrowded
club, not in a gymnasium during prom.
If technical death-grind is your thing, you should have
stopped reading 100 words ago and just picked up Apocalyptic Feasting.
Now, if you will excuse me, I am going to irritate the hell
out of my neighbors for the next half-hour.
?
4 out of 5 stars
