Apocalyptic Feasting

On their debut full-length, the technical, math-obsessed, death metal quartet Brain Drill puts the pedal to the metal, expanding on the sound their 2006 EP The Parasites promised. Dylan Ruskin's guitar playing is nearly scary it's so utterly fast and punishing. Add to this the blastbeat drumming skills of Marco Pitruzella (who would give any drill-n-bass bedroom producer's tap electronic manipulations a run for her/his money), and the boiling bottom-end quake of Jef Hughell's bass, and you already have something as wildly inventive and uber-heavy as Meshuggah. Steve Rathjen's vocals alternate evenly between inhuman shriek and sub-basement of hell growl -- often within the same note. This is music that doesn't really think about riffing all that much, it's more about piling one detail-oriented set of squalling leads on top of another only to be pushed through the crash barrier by the rhythm section. The only thing that keeps it on the ground is Rathjen, who lays out the lyrics at half speed; they are part chant, part scream, all brutal. These ten tunes go by with such ferocity and speed it's impossible to get a grip on them the first few times through the set. It's tempting to call them a grindcore band, but Brain Drill don't stick with anything long enough to grind, they excerpt so many changes into their metallic scree that they make the pages of ideas that the Mars Volta puts into their tunes seem monochromatic. The title cut, "Consumed by the Dead," "Bury the Living" (with its deceptively slow intro that turns into a white noise blur before the first 30 seconds have ticked by), and album closer "Sadistic Abductive" are so punishing and mind-melting, it's hard to believe that they exist on the same record. Add to these six more cuts, all told, all in 35 minutes, and this is a tech-death metalhead's wet dream. This is a contender out of the box. This noise makes the early Slayer stuff sound like Deep Purple.