Apocalyptic Feasting

In death metal there are some bands which simply cannot be taken seriously. Some of them are funny (if not ridiculous) because of the name, the lyrics or the names of their songs. Others have really bad songwriting skills and, sometimes, they try to remedy with technique. Brain Drill is one of these bands.

We're speaking of a four-piece american act founded by guitarist Dylan Ruskin and the prodigy drummer Marco Pitruzzella in 2006. Brain Drill, clearly inspired by Origin (which in 2005 released their Echoes of Decimation), are one of the first bands to play hypertechnical death metal. And I mean hypertechnical. These guys' skills are pretty much unbelievable. Speed and precision are inhuman, and every member shows mastery in a lot of their instruments' techniques. So we have Origin-inspired death metal and every member is skilled beyond imagination. Then why the average score? Mostly because Brain Drill are inspired by Origin just in being ultratechnical; the songwriting, as I mentioned before, is just atrocious.

They play 3 or 4 minutes long, Origin-esque songs, but ten times more technical and with a grindcore structure. What the hell? You have 10 songs and each one basically consist of lightning fast, chaotic, illogic massacre of notes. This is really funny, because after hearing a song you'll probably think "What? Did someone recorded these guys while they were jerking off in the studio? You CAN'T write something like that", and when you realize they DID write something like that, you'll laugh like a maniac. If you manage to listen to the whole album at once, you'll end up with a terrible headache, but you'll STILL laugh like a maniac.

During Apocalyptic Feasting, Dylan is busy playing fingerbreaking sweeps, scales, tapping and riffs without a coherent flow and no sense of melody at all, with the exception of some parts of his solos (which are ridiculously easy compared to every other part of the songs). He is the main source of that onslaught of notes (sometimes pretty good, like in the beginning of Revelation) that is trying to annihilate your ears. Jeff Hughell plays a 7-strings Conklin bass and he spends his time mimicking the guitar. Yeah, he pretty much plays everything Dylan does, using the same techniques and delivering something that should resemble groove while Dylan is playing his solos. His bass work is really entertaining, especially if you are a bass player: you'll be amused. He also steals the show sometimes, like in Sadistic Abductive and Bury The Living. Marco Pitruzzella is basically doing his best to smash your skull and squeeze your brain, and he succeeds without a problem. He'll constantly rape the drums while he blasts with his double bass at 65746426262 bpm, he's monstrous and probably has 6 arms and feet (he's like Vishnu when he's pissed off and wants to unload himself playing the drums). Vocalist Steve Rathjen screams like a tortured pig and has a deep enough growl: he's probably one of the few things about Apocalyptic Feasting that are actually good, even if he's not that unique.

The songs are pretty difficult to remember and have not variety, because the formula is always the same. Sure, you'll find a slightly melodic riff here, a bass solo there and a particularly impressive drumming over there, but only if you have the patience to listen to the tracks a lot of times you'll memorize most of them. After countless listens, my favourites are the Revelation, Sadistic Abductive and Bury the Living, because they have what I mentioned above: Revelation has a pretty good guitar part, Bury the Living has a small bass solo and an overall entertaining bass work and Sadistic Abductive has these elements along with the fastest drumming in the whole album.

If you're a fan of technicality, like me, you'll probably enjoy this record if you have enough patience, but objectively speaking Apocalyptic Feasting is pretty bad: it has nothing that makes an album good, aside from immense skills. However, try to approach it in the right mood: you'll have fun. This is perfect when you want to destroy your brain or when you wish to show this to your friends and watch their jaws dropping the floor. Listen to Brain Drill with a big smile on your face! Welcome to the ludic side of death metal!