Brain Drill-Apocalyptic Feasting

I don’t know where I first heard about Brain Drill…I think they might have been on an event poster taped to a sign post in downtown Seattle when I was visiting the Pike Place Market. Anyways, I saw the name and obviously recognized it to be some really brutal death metal band. But I didn’t check them out until about a year later to find that they’re one of the most technical and complex bands out there. I also found out that they are a lot more popular than I originally thought. But aside from that, a band cannot impress me with technicality and complexity alone. These guys have proved to have unique songs that aren’t repetitive, that are high on the brutality scale, and that never cease to disappoint.

I’m not too knowledgeable about this group, but I do know that they have a very well known vocalist that has appeared on Metal Injection several times and is really funny. He is one of the very few death metal vocalists that can growl and scream perfectly. If you want to get an idea of what I’m getting at, listen to “The Depths of Darkness”. His growl is somewhat deep but very powerful and smooth, and his scream is very high-pitched and gut wrenching. Let’s just hope that he’s not doing his vocals the wrong way and eventually end up like Mitch Lucker and Chris Barnes.

If you were to ask me who these guys could relate to, I would say that they have a sound that can relate to Origin, Decrepit Birth, Veil of Maya, and Dying Fetus. Brain Drill is one of those tech death bands that have a lot of those high-pitched complicated guitar parts. The good thing is that it’s not constant. They also have one of the better bassists of modern death metal. I can definitely compare him to the bassist that was with The Faceless when they recorded Planetary Duality. Listen to “Bury the Living” and you’ll see that he’s fucking amazing.

The lyrical content of this band is actually pretty unique amongst the majority of other technical death bands out there. You will often find a lot of science fiction themed lyrics in the genre, some examples of bands that use that theme are Origin, The Faceless, Decrepit Birth, and Embryonic Devourment. You can probably guess Brain Drill’s main theme just by their name. Their lyrics are very gore oriented with lots of apocalyptic-styled stories of destruction and downfalls of the human race. Their most recent album, Quantum Catastrophe has less of the gore elements and more of the apocalyptic elements.

I would have to say that my favorite song off this extremely technical album would have to be “The Depths of Darkness”. I can see some deathcore elements seeping into this song, mainly in the vocal section. I’m also a fan of “The Parasites”, which is one of the songs where the band’s ability to stay together and on-time really stands out. So overall, this is an extremely technical and brutal album that I would recommend to just about any fans of technical music. I would give this album 16/20.