Brothel

It's hard to believe that a decade ago, deathcore material with bedroom EZ Drummer percussion quality like this was actually completely acceptable for short pre-label releases and the bands that would put these out would still get a decent amount of buzz and traction, maybe even get onto an opening slot for a Job for a Cowboy show. MySpace deathcore and current 2020 deathcore are almost two different genres with two entirely different fanbases. Would you catch the same kid that listens to Distant or Shadow of Intent listening to Hester Prynne and Knights of the Abyss? Hardly likely.

These midwestern boys in Hester Prynne do nothing to reinvent deathcore when it was at its creative peak, but that's what makes this release simultaneously good while also making it no secret why it was buried in irrelevancy, but then followed by being dug up again thanks to sweet nostalgia. I don't even know where to begin in explaining why I like this, well for starters the group's aesthetic/lyrics are very western-influenced, and by that I mean that this band would not feel out-of-place if they actually hailed from Nevada or Arizona, but they're from Kansas of all places. The name of this EP is Brothel for crying out loud, how are they not from Nevada? I love it. Secondly, there's lots of breakdowns and there's lots of riffs to go around. Also fun.

Kansas natives Hester Prynne start off the introduction to this EP with some sustained guitar lines, chuggalug open notes and a long guttural before the statement "That's it. Off with her fucking head." Ahhh, now this is the deathcore I remember before it became Slipknot-reminiscent mask-wearing record label bullshit (see Slaughter to Prevail). Musically this EP doesn't stray too far from some early The Black Dahlia Murder worship mixed with some Suffocation and Suicide Silence influence. As obnoxious as the vocals and poor drum programming is, the riffs are within the decent-to-good range at all times, never letting up even for a moment; these guitarists never run out of ideas. The guitar lines, do however possess this weird feedback, it could be the tone, but it also be the weak production job (it would not surprise me if this EP was recorded in someone's bedroom on their PC, but then again I'm too sure). Also while on topic of the production, I should also add that there's this weird buzzing feedback throughout the recording. It's mostly not noticeable, but when the music has silent breaks (listen to 1:15 on "That Night a Forest Grew"), it becomes clearly audible and it's hard to unhear when you do catch it. I don't understand why they couldn't just delete the buzzing noises during those breaks in the mixing process.

As I've stated multiple times here, the drums are definitely the worst thing about this EP; everything about them are so obviously fake and not satisfying, you'd have to be an idiot to think a human performed a single note of real percussion on here. I don't much have a problem with drum programming, moreso I do with drum samples just sounding real bad which is the case here. The snare almost sounds like someone snapping a plastic spork and the double bass sounds muffled, on the other hand the cymbal samples are actually kind of varied and not as bad as anything else. Overall 2008 EZ Drummer samples were quite obviously a crock of shit, well, at least on this album they were.

Vocals are an interesting one, this guy Lance Rollins, while somewhat obnoxious in some regard he at least possesses an impressive range. You've got the typical scream/growl diversion but he also throws in some decent Skinless-style guttural vocals, which sacrifices understandability for brutality. If you love easily understandable extreme vocals, you'll love these vocals, being that virtually everything that he screams/growls is clearly understandable without the need of reading the lyrics. Only times I had some trouble following along was when he was doing some of those cool gutturals. Although I will say when he does the gutturals, it's my favorite moments in the vocal department.

The EP isn't bad, not even mediocre, I kind of like it for nostalgic purposes along with the fact that the riffs are very solid and it has that MySpace deathcore charm that comes along with poorly produced material of the time. However, for the average person that doesn't possess the same affection I do for the past, I much rather recommend that you instead listen to their full-length album The Goswell Divorce, mostly due to the fact that all these songs featured here (sans the acoustic outro) were re-recorded for that record with a lot more professional sound quality. For that reason, Brothel almost feels more like a demo rather than an EP being that it carries early versions of more than half of the material that makes up the debut.
Only remaining reason why you'd wanna hear this EP is so you can experience these epic movie samples which were omitted on the remade versions; "Bunch of slack-jawed faggots around here, this stuff will make you a goddamn sexual tyrannosaurus."