Author: Rok Klemše
Artist: Brutality
Label: Racket Records
Release: year_month
Runtime: 39:41
Rating: 4.5/5
Florida’s Tampa is to death metal what Birmingham is to metal in general. The mecca of American death metal is home to genre giants like Morbid Angel, Obituary, Monstrosity, Deicide and Atheist, and Tampa is also home to the legendary Morrisound studio, where eternal classics like Death – Human, Deicide – Legion, Atheist – Unquestionable Presence, Pestilence – Testimony of the Ancients, Obituary – Slowly We Rot and countless others were born. But Tampa can still surprise you with its »mid-tier« bands, the ones that stayed in the shadow of their contemporaries, and Brutality are definitely one of them.
In 1993 Brutality put out an outstanding but sadly overlooked debut, Screams of Anguish, and their later studio efforts were more than solid too, but in the death metal flood of the late eighties and early nineties Brutality got lost like Odysseus’ Argo. Except their odyssey didn’t last a mere decade, but a solid twenty years. That’s how long it’s been since their last studio record In Mourning, yet Brutality are proof that all those years of inactivity did them no harm. Sea of Ignorance shows from the very first moments that in 2016 Brutality are a ruthless, destructive force that mows you down like a Mongol horde or the blast wave of a nuclear explosion. Sea of Ignorance isn’t just a perfect slap in the face from old-school death metal; no, Brutality are much more than a nostalgia raid, because the material on the album naturally reeks of Florida death metal, yet death metal hasn’t sounded this polished and carefully crafted while also being this hellish, raw and brutal in a long, long time.
This time around Brutality thought of everything, but first and foremost the songs and the riffs. The riffs are more varied and mighty than they’ve been in ages, while the songs are fleshed-out, standalone monoliths of epic death metal. The band’s approach on Sea of Ignorance is technical and complex, yet the song structures stay clear and distinctive, with monumental choruses adding the cherry on top, and the perfect combination of punch and melody doing even more. I dare you to find a better blend of the two this year than the one in the massive beast 48 to 52, probably the album’s best moment and a track that will be hard to knock off the throne of best death metal song of 2016.
The outstanding sound is the reason why the instruments and vocals alike suck in everything around them like a black hole. Including the listener. Longtime guitarist Jay Fernandez squeezed out of his fingers probably the best riffs and solos of his career, newcomer Ruston Grosse is beastly and devilishly varied behind the kit, Jeff Acres’ bass twists, coils and slithers around the guitar riffs and drums like some Lovecraftian tentacle, and the double vocal assault of Acres and Scott Riegel is dynamic, barbaric and raw, yet comprehensible and clear. Honestly, Sea of Ignorance has only one flaw – the lion’s share of the album’s runtime goes to the cover of the Bathory classic Shores In Flames, spectacularly executed as it is. Fernandez pays beautiful tribute to Quorthon with clean vocals in it, but a viking black metal anthem, even one Brutality restyle to fit them, sticks out a bit too much.
Sea of Ignorance is the kind of record that should catapult the band into death metal’s top league. That probably won’t happen, but Brutality’s first studio album in twenty years should be one hell of a loud warning that the cult Floridians are very much alive and thirsty for blood. Sea of Ignorance is a primal beast that reminds you why death metal is such a mighty genre, a testament to how an old-school death metal band should sound in the modern age, and an album that leaves you in a puddle of blood after forty minutes, as if Negan from The Walking Dead had gone to town on you with his Lucille.
Lineup
Jeff Acres – bass, vocals
Jay Fernandez – guitar
Scott Reigel – vocals
Ruston Grosse – drums
Production
Jarrett Pritchard and Brutality
Tracklist
1. Sea of Ignorance
2. 48 to 52
3. Fatal Cure
4. Tribute
5. Perpetual Resolution
6. Barbarically Beheaded
7. Shores In Flames (Bathory)
8. End of Days
