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Brain Drill > Quantum Catastrophe > Reviews > JTR4
Brain Drill - Quantum Catastrophe

A laughable attempt at brutality - 5%

JTR4, September 2nd, 2012

Brutal tech-death in its most unrefined and pitifully stereotype-laden form is about the best way I can describe this album. Even if you aren't going to go through the trouble of bringing something new to the plate in your genre, the least you could do would be to execute the sound you're going for in a somewhat smart manner. Sadly, this album lacks elements of both the former and latter qualities I just mentioned. The album is essentially an onslaught of "been there, done that."

The drumming, as one might expect from this genre, is ridiculously quick. This quality isn't bad on its own, it's just that EVERY song on the album has them move at lightning speed in very similar patterns. The drums, much like the guitars, are mainly here to do one thing. Be as fast as humanly possible. The album is the perfect example of being speedy simply for the sake of being speedy. There's no actual artistic reasoning or thought behind it, simply mindless "br00tality."

The guitar-work is filled to the brim with your usual, run-of-the-mill technical solos and occasional, heavy riffs. Complexity doesn't immediately mean good, and this album is no exception to the rule. Sure, Brain Drill isn't exactly on the same level as Decapitated or anything, but COME ON! The very least you could do is pretend like you have the smallest amount of interest in what you're doing. While listening to this album, all I can picture in my mind is the band intently staring at their instruments as they are played. The album is like a tech-death machine with no soul behind it. The guitars will, very rarely, have a solid riff played, but this quality is heavily outweighed by the amount of boring, uninteresting junk being thrown into your ears. Speaking of uninteresting junk, even the death growls here sound boring and lifeless.

This album, in my eyes, is a pile of garbage. Every stereotype of the tech-death subgenre is found here. This wouldn't be nearly as irritable if the band made it appear that they were trying to sound a little different than the thousands of other bands which play the same style. Not only that, but it also would have been nice if the band didn't make it feel like their brutality was so forced. Bands like Meshuggah have their brutal sound come naturally, but this album falls flat on its face. For anyone looking for a heavy album, this album is great. For anyone looking for a quality album, steer clear of this one.