Brain Drill & Brainstorm reviewed
Brain Drill
Apocalyptic Feasting
(Metal Blade)
Brainstorm
Downburst
(Metal Blade)
A few write-ups have knocked Metal Blade for releasing CDs by Brain Drill and Brainstorm within a few weeks of each other, inferring the label wasn’t using its brain (nice, I know). Fans will be confused! They’ll go to the record store – yeah, right – and accidentally buy the wrong album!
That seems the opposite of dumb for two reasons: 1) someone buys the Brain Drill record trying to buy Brainstorm, they end up going back for the other and buying two MB records instead of one. 2) The label had to know releasing them so closely (and servicing them to media in the same package) guaranteed both albums get ink in one review.
Genius, Metal Blade.
Also genius was slapping a sticker on Apocalyptic Feasting‘s jewel case with this quote from Cannibal Corpse’s Alex Webster : “Brain Drill are one of the most musically over the top bands I have ever heard. They are truly raising the bar for technicality, velocity, and overall extremity in death metal.” The absolute only way that could be better for Brain Drill is if Webster said “Brain Drill even make us look like a bunch of pussies.” Webster isn’t exaggerating, though; these guys do it faster, heavier, harder, and more dexterously than anybody in death metal. Imagine you knew how to play drums. Now think about sitting behind your imaginary drum kit and playing as fast as possible. Because this is purely imagination, that would be pretty fucking fast, right? Brain Drill skinsman Lord Marco Pitruzzella plays at least five times faster, (Just think how fast he plays in his imagination!); the same goes for every instrument on Apocalyptic Feasting. There isn’t an iota of melody through this entire album (10 songs), but people who buy records with song titles like “Swine Slaughter” and “Forcefed Human Shit” don’t give a shit about melody.
Brainstorm do dig the melody, however. The German group’s music is both brainy and brawny, and Downburst, though it marks seven full-lengths and nearly two decades into Brainstorm’s career, is some of the best power metal out there – right up there with Gamma Ray’s recent Land Of The Free II among the style’s early 2008 leaders. Andy B. Franck, who joined the group in 1999, is a commanding singer who easily (and justifiably) could push things way over the top on songs like “End Of Sorrow” but doesn’t. In a genre lovingly known for being generous with the cheese, Franck and co. actually have boundaries. They’re not totally innocent (“I am the key to unlock your door,” Franck sings with enough vibrato for the entire song on “Surrounding Walls”), but they at least show some restraint, a rarity in power metal.
— Trevor Fisher
Click here to download Brain Drill’s “Apocalyptic Feasting.”
Click here to download Brainstorm’s “Fire Walk With Me.”
