The official brutal death metal thread

I'm quite interested in hearing what people consider 'brutal' and what's not. What are the criteria??? I for one wouldn't class Zyklon, Bolt Thrower, Morbid Angel or Obituary for example, as listed by None So Vile, as brutal death metal.....but that got me thinking.....well......Morbid Angel write pretty complex, brutal stuff (well, early material), but I don't class them as brutal because their production has always been weak and thin, I realised after some contemplation. On the contrary, Zyklon don't write in my opinon music that is difficult to listen to, brutal, complex etc, but then again, World OV Worms at least is produced really heavily, and it makes the music sound more brutal than it is.....so are they brutal or not?? Well, it's arguable whether they're even straight-out death or not, but that doesn't matter. And then......many people (including myself I suppose...) take brutal death and deathgrind as synonymous....is that a correct thing to do???

How do y'all decide whether or not something is 'brutal' to you? Should the term be an official label (as in a proper subgenre of death) or do you use it more for your own personal interpretation???

I tend to try and stick to the former, but it's very troublesome to define it seems....
 
An interesting subject, SculptedCold. I've been thinking about the very same thing. I do not class Zyklon and the other bands you mentioned as brutal, really. True, Zyklon does have a heavy production, and do therefore sound more brutal than Morbid Angel, but compare Zyklon to for instance Origin - there's a huge difference.

"Brutal" bands have both brutal production and music, I think. The bass drums are like a kick in the stomach, and are quite high in the mix, and the drum production is overall heavier and more relentless than normal DM production - listen to Psycroptic's and Brodequin's snares compared to the snare drums of Morbid Angel, for instance. It's quite hard to explain, really. I consider these bands brutal DM:

Origin
Abhorrence
Goratory
Psycroptic
Skinless
Brodequin
Cryptopsy
Decapitated
Dehumanized
Deicide (Only have their self titled and Legion, though)
Dying Fetus
Hate Eternal
Immolation
Incantation
Krisiun
Nile
Pessimist
Suffocation


Borderline bands:
Cannibal Corpse
Myrkskog
Malevolent Creation
 
@ Naggamanteh: I own Brodequin's "Instruments Of Torture". I guess it'd be a good album if it was possible to actually hear the riffs! It's impossible to decipher the riffs, and I think the bass drums are way too loud in the mix. The production is very weak imo.
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I am listening to "Instruments of Torture" right now. The production is poor, which is a shame because these guys ARE very technical while maintaining brutality. However, on Festival of Death they sound like another band, everything is so much faster and more brutal (for a simple reason, the band admitted they had learnt to play even better). Again, the production is rather poor but I am not sure it would be possible to hear the riffs very well even if the production was good; Chad Walls seldom stops drumming, and he is drumming very fast.

I don't know what's up with all the excellent US style (Texas) brutal death metal bands and their poor sound. Sect of Execration, Prophecy, Devourment, they all have enough skill (Devourment's drummer is just amazing) but they seem to be unable to deliver good sound. I wonder whether it is due to lack of money or could it be their intention?
 
SculptedCold said:
I'm quite interested in hearing what people consider 'brutal' and what's not. What are the criteria???

How do y'all decide whether or not something is 'brutal' to you? Should the term be an official label (as in a proper subgenre of death) or do you use it more for your own personal interpretation???

I tend to try and stick to the former, but it's very troublesome to define it seems....
Click to expand...
Interesting point. There was a time when I thought fast drumming=brutality but I no longer think that is the case. The likes of Nile, Hate Eternal, Internecine or Immolation all have very fast drummers but when I compare them to the mid-paced drumming of Lividity, they do not sound more brutal. In fact Lividity sound heavy and brutal even with their not so fast drumming. It has to be something in the way the music is mixed, the kind of drumming used, etc. Hard to explain for me as I do not know all the terms in English. "Brutality" is very much a subjective feeling.
 
Donnie Darko said:
For me its Meshuggah and Cryptopsy
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Since when have Meshuggah been Death Metal? :err:

As for Death Metal and Brutal Death Metal, i normally separate the two by the vocals, the amount of blast beats and overall production. Most BDM bands have burpz0rz or very low vox compared to DM which is usually just a bellow. I find that most BDM is just BLASTBLASTBLASTBLASTBLASTBLASTBLASTBLASTBLASTBLASTBLAST for the whole album compared to DM when its normally more controlled. BDM usually has a very bassy/muddy production to excentuate the heaviness compared to DM which usually has a very balanced production.
 
Naggamanteh said:
"Brutality" is very much a subjective feeling.
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I agree, but this is problematic. Consider; Opeth fans calling Bloodbath 'good brutal death metal' isn't a rare occurence. So....brutality as a word can be entirely subjective obviously, but it can't be the only way to determine whether any said band is brutal death metal.

Ageless, Meshuggah are definately death metal (what else can they be?) but they're just not brutal. I'd agree with your definitions though, they fit pretty well. Vocals and production are about the most important I think.....it's usually more a case of how a band sounds rather than specifically the music they write. Like Lividity, Devourment, Enmity; oftentimes the drumming isn't very fast at all, and the riffs are often very catchy on top of that, but they can't really be called anything other than brutal by virtue of the overall sound, which is extraordinarily heavily produced.
 
SculptedCold said:
Ageless, Meshuggah are definately death metal (what else can they be?) but they're just not brutal.
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:guh:

Meshuggah are in a class of their own since 'D.E.I.' and I can't see how you could consider them DM... :erk: Especially now! 'Nothing' was y'know, like totally un-DM. 'Chaosphere' and 'D.E.I.' could possibly be under the umbrella of Extreme Metal but if anything they were nearer to Thrash than anything else.

Anywho, thats my 2¢.
 
Hmm. Well I do not think that Meshuggah are death metal. There are no blast beats, no typical death metal riffs, and no death metal vocals. Their music defies categorization; they play a style of metal of their own, with their odd chugging muted rhythmic riffs, wierd lead effects, and unusual guitar sound. It almost sounds like their music is being made by some wierd futuristic machine from outer space or something. If anything, I would say that are post-thrash, and that is what Metal-Archives categorizes them as as well.
 
They're definitely not Industrial Metal, I can tell you that.

Life Sucks said:
It almost sounds like their music is being made by some wierd futuristic machine from outer space or something.
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Totally. On the song "Corridor of Chameleons" I can imagine some huge multi-limbed cyborg machine churning it out. That song is so Metal!
 
They sure aren't industrial metal. Who said they were? Meshuggah could never be categorized as industrial metal because they don't have a drum machine, don't really use samples, and don't use wierd sounding synthesizers.
 
Decapitated
Cryptopsy
Sceptic
Avulsed
Nile
Hate Eternal
Lykathea Aflame
Psychotogen
Neuraxis
Immolation
Morbid Angel
Suffocation
Vital Remains
Origin ( I dont think its grindcore)
Iniquity
Insision
Krisiun
Anata
Debodified
Deeds of Flesh
Gorguts
Dripping
Circle of Dead Children
Kaamos
Luciferion
Myrkskog
Necromicon
Sadis Euphoria
Paganizer
Necrophagist
Quo Vadis
Psycroptic
Septic Flesh
Severed Saviour
Spawn of Possesion
Vile
Zyklon
Virulence
Wormed
Behemoth


:kickass:
 
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