Brutus - Burst (Hassle Records / Sargent House) 2017
9
Hailing from Leuven, Belgium, Brutus deliver a mean line in jagged, disjointed, angular alternative rock. Stealing beats from bands as diverse as Queen Adreena, The Distillers and Truckfighters – they create a cacophonic noise of guitars that are designed to shred oxygen to ribbons, machine gun drums and bass that is as dense as it is heavy, as booming as it is thumping. Vocally, it is a punky, angry howl of banshees screams and wails. Burst is an inch away from pure hardcore, filtered through alternative rock and delivered through a doom bands PA. It’s a soup of sound, a giant, cosmic headfuck of an album, and one that penetrates into the core of you and beats you bloody and blue. In a word – it’s fucking perfect.