Chaosbreed
Brutal
6.7
Remember a few years ago how excited you got when a eurodeath band would try to get that great old Entombed/Dismembered guitar sound? How forward you looked to hearing bands who appreciated the meaty wetness of that guitar texture? No? I do. And I was right there, as excited as anyone to hear Bloodbath pay homage to those bygone blah blah blah.
OK. They did it. Homage has been paid. Bloodbath pretty much accomplished everything you can accomplish in that area. So although Chaosbreed has released a nice eurodeath record that sounds like a tribute to the band that paid tribute to the bands that were meaty before meaty was cool, the simple fact is this is twice removed metal ideas. It sounds good, it has a sense of humor along with a sense of history, but really…it gives you NOTHING that Bloodbath didn’t give you already. If anything, the playing and songwriting are nearly exactly like what you get on Entombed’s Left Hand Path.
I am not going to lie and say I didn’t have fun listening to this. It’s a cool little album from a band that gets the sense of mischief Entombed once had to a T. I think anyone who was floating around the very early nineties when Bolt Thrower and Entombed were making sympatideath records like this can at least get a kick out of this.
But to recommend it to people living in 2004 who are looking for the very best heavy metal available is a stretch I can’t make. They would be much better off with Bloodbath, or better yet picking up the original Earache catalog. If you just can’t find any of these records, THEN I would suggest grabbing Brutal. It’s a good listen, but it’s so derivative I just can’t ask anyone to pay for it.
