Genocide Landscape

You know, this is one of those releases where I'll temper my 'no fun music' rules for a little bit. Serial Butcher is a pretty fun band- there's clearly a spirit of good-natured bounce and tongue-in-cheek theatrics about them- but they never sacrifice songwriting, heaviness, or sheer brutality just because they're enjoying themselves. 'Genocide Landscape' is a wonderfully savage little EP where the fun works to its benefit, not against it, and is definitely worth a listen from brutal death metal fans from all over.

This was released on Deepsend, which is kind of a poor man's Willowtip, so that might teach you what this sounds like. Serial Butcher is primarily influenced by later Cannibal Corpse, clearly, but with a bit of quirky timing taken from the more technical brutal death acts and some of the spastic, stop-start quality of bands like Malignancy. It's erratic and extremely fast, rhythmic music, but it's also supremely catchy despite all this. The band's riffing style is impeccable, mostly because it's so specialized and varied- every riff on this release can only be used in the exact location it's found- there's no interchangeability. A lot of bands suffer from riffs that sound like they could be dropped anywhere and retain meaning, but not here. This is carefully composed music and the phenomenal sense of pacing and urgency in the songs is a testament to that.

More than any other band, I think this reminds me of Cadaveric Crematorium, an Italian group who do fun death/grind with oddly similar songwriting ethos. This is a pretty good band to sound like, and Serial Butcher may just be the best Belgian band in my collection. What makes this so interesting is that Serial Butcher works completely within the confines of brutal death but manages to do so much with the established elements, along with tossing in some surprises that we'd never see coming, like the melodic, '70s-style solo on 'Cum/Gut Explosion', which is clearly meant to be goofy but also works entirely in the context of the song. This is where the fun bands usually lose track: they put in some jokey element that works fine on its own but doesn't work with the song. Serial Butcher does both and are a much better band for it.

I'd say this is a surprisingly accessible CD; much of the material is very straightforward and the engaging sense of riffing grabs me a lot more than many other, more convoluted brutal death bands. With that in mind, brutal death fans should absolutely grab this, and even those not typically into the genre might like this as well. There's more to explore in this EP than full-lengths by other brutal death bands, so I feel the need to give these guys some massive credit for doing something that manages to be fun but great at the same time.