Slachtbeest

I have always had a special interest in Dutch death metal, bands like Sinister, Gorefest, Severe Torture, Houwitser, Altar or Prostitute Disfigurement, and now Brutus. I usually find Dutch bands to have a tight, intense sound, and Brutus isn't an exception. I even think they're one of the fastest and most fucking brutal European band, if not the most.

When I first listened to this one, I got really shocked about how fast and intense they could go; I listen to death metal since 1993, and now I can't remember any single band, either European or American, keeping such a fucking fast pace during the whole recording. It seems drummer can only blast, but he also plays nice fast fills. I wonder how strong and tight drummer's legs may be to maintain such an infernal intensity and speed...

Guitars sound powerful, playing fast riffs. Although there're some tracks where the same riff is played at a given speed, and later is played at both half or double its pace, making some nice tempo changes and keeping the songs interesting, not only playing at the speed of light each and every riff of each and every song. Bass guitar is not clearly audible, though its presence is there, in the basement of the recording, making a cohesive work, and giving the band its powerful guitar sound.

Vocals are quite low, reminding me of a darker Craig Pillard at times, or sounding like a huge dog's barks some other times, really deep and low grunts and growls with some high pitched screams here and there in order to emphasize whatever he's singing. Lyrics are written in Dutch, but they talk about rape, murder and so on, which is likely the most common lyrical themes in death metal, no matter where comes the band from, or the language they use in their lyrics.

Even though I don't think Brutus is an original band, I have to admit this full-length is way faster and more intense than most of today's European scene; it's true that they're not much technical, but the speed they play at is highly remarkable. And it's an album I dig on a lot, so I can't help reccomending it to all fans of fast brutal death metal.

If you’re at all familiar with Dark Angel, you’ll know that Darkness Descends is quite possibly the pinnacle of thrash metal, if only because of its uninhibited intensity and relentless aggression. In some ways, this album could be the Darkness Descends of brutal death metal. I mean, with a name like Brutus and a title that translates to fucking “Slaughterbeast” (which sounds even cooler in Dutch), what the fuck would you expect? Toss all the nonsense about betrayal and Caesar out the window; this resembles the Brutus of the Popeye cartoons more closely – dumb, ugly, but huge and powerful like a motherfucker.

The riffs are constantly tremolo-picked lower-register assaults (with the occasional pinch harmonic to spice things up), paired with a murky, low-end guitar tone that still manages to retain a great deal of clarity. They’re unique in the sense that they’re almost the furthest you can go into anti-melody without starting to sound like Defeated Sanity, Enmity and their chromatic brethren, thus residing in a very hazy and indescribable grey area of musicality. The opening riff of Wrevel would be a good example to understand what I mean; you’d hardly be able to hum it accurately, yet note-wise, the odd sequence of notes just… makes sense. Their use of rhythmic accents adds a lot to the music, particularly in the war-like opening riff of Lijstraf (which is coincidentally reminiscent of a faster, amped up Bolt Thrower). Quite often, they end up playing in odd time signatures, but it’s not like they’ve planned it or anything; rather, they seem to have ‘accidentally’ done so, simply because they got a bit carried away, in no small part aided by the no-frills drumming, courtesy of Ploegbaas (R.I.P.). He’s done a beastly job in raping the kit, gracing the album with near-constant blasting. In fact, the amount of time he doesn’t spend blasting probably adds up to about 30 seconds or so (excluding the 13 second intro of Grafzerk), which sometimes makes me wonder how many times his drum kit must have broken while recording the album.

The vocals are yet another marvel to behold. For the most part, a low, indiscernible growl is employed, sounding something like a deeper and less reverb-laden Craig Pillard. Higher, barked vocals also make a few appearances on the album, and they do their job just fine without overstaying their welcome. Again, the rhythmic placement of each syllable has been carefully considered, resulting in a much more cohesive album where everything just meshes together.

Bass duties are handled by a mysterious fellow by the pseudonym of Ploert (maybe it’s his real name, fuck if I know). While I can certainly feel the general presence of the bass, individual notes are nigh inaudible, so I’ll just assume they’re perfectly in sync with the guitars, serving their purpose as a solid fortification. Perhaps this is a good thing after all, as any diverging bass lines could have actually dampened the strength of the guitars. I’d even go so far as to say that this was possibly intentional, because these guys just seem to know exactly what works.

And at the end of the day, I guess that is why I regard this album so highly; everything here just… works. With an unrestrained, single-minded fervour, as well as a great emphasis on rhythmic details, these four Dutchmen have struck a very fine balance between brutality and madness, creating a distinct style that has not been replicated to this day. This album is a must-have for any fan of brutal death metal.

Slachbeest is really a phenomenal piece of brutality, rolling in influences from old school and grabbing influence from the harsh genre of modern brutal death, this is a real honour to have on your shelve. In fact, if you find the CD, it is a great search but eventually you have one of the best brutal death metal CDs I would say in quite awhile.

Twists and turns, slamming and blasting, those all important deep growls that inhale in and destroy every ear drum listening! The production is sweet as it holds the atmosphere for the brutality but still catches the drums, guitar and the vocals at the same balance. Also, the drums have brilliant coordination, skill and blasting ability. It seems like this man is some kind of non stop machine! Whilst the guitars work together to create the overtop sound on the records with each song carefully written with the riffs being catchy but not too this-is-too-groovy-to-be-mainstream forte. Eventually, the vocals as mentioned above are hanging over the top like a willow tree over a lake, giving that important gore and whatever they speak about as it’s all foreign to me!

This is one of the points that would normally bring down the record rating but the language and the music goes well. Then if you have time to look up the lyrics and translate them into international English, you can see how well thought they are and gruesome (some) are to! This then does wonders for the band as its still In their native language and still making successes around the world! This album is for anyone into this type of metal and has the full backing from me. I only hope the band can release a follow up and if they do,, I hope it be as close to as this is as a masterpiece.

I'll be very careful at reviewing this band, because they're so good. There's always something about Dutch death metal that I could safely say, they're one of the most brutal scenes out there. But something is a bit different from Brutus, as their title themes and lyrics are all written in Dutch. Even though this is a language that isn't spoken by many, the sound of this band should not sound so foreign to metalheads that like their music extra brutal and extreme.

Instrumentally wise, this band records tracks that are executed so perfectly. Their mix consists of whoring up the drums with blast beats, and that guitar tone is close to perfect. Every single track, 1 through 10 has a different riff to it, which is also played very up tight and fast. Notice folks that this is not easy to do, as most cases... bands end up recording an album that all the tracks sound just about the same.
But yeah, the drums do tend to sound the same throughout the whole album. Whether you like the sound of the drumming, it is up to you if you'll really like the whole environment. I know a lot of cases where friends of mine don't really dig how the whole sound was recorded. But in my case, I enjoy it so much that I really recommend this album for a fun listen. As for the bass, it's audible to some extend. Not a lot of action happening in this line, but it sure as hell does the trick to give the music a nice bulky background to it.

Oh yes, a very brutal act indeed, and it will own your fucking face. Recommended for fans of Disavowed, and... well... you figure it out.

Cheers to Holland.

Nope, this is not Popeye's archenemy's solo band, this is just another brutal death metal band from Netherlands. According to the booklet, this album shouldn't let anyone live after you have listened to it because of it's brutality and furiosity but is Slachtbeest really something worth listening to or another lame and boring brutal death metal release?

Unfortunately, this album really has lot more negative than positive sides because of it's really average and dull content that really begins sounding the same over and over again after you've listened to every song for 15 seconds. It really makes me sighing in relief that Slachtbeest's length is only 30 minutes. But even that this begins to sound the same from one song to another, the reason why this album sounds so average/below-average is something else. If you listen to songs like Vleespomp, Bloedspoor or Darmschurft, you can't notice big differences inside of them. Of course you can hear some superficial differences between them but it is really really disturbing to my ears that I can't notice anything else than same sounding blastbeasts, guitars and vocals in each song after 10 seconds or so. Then it continues for 3 long minutes in which time I switched to next song just that I can find same "slaughter" over and over again. This record just doesn't offer anything worth to listen in the end but everything can't be bad, can it?

Of course not, like with many of these brutal death albums that tend to go under the bar, this thing has had some decent producing done to it. Guitars, drums and even bass sounds good and they all are in good balance. Vocals tend to change into standard and repetitive growling but even vocalist does some decent growling once in a while. overall performance has some parts that reflect attitude and skills of the bandmembers but it's still not good enough even if they have basic knowledge of how to play their instruments. This only shows that even if one has all basic knowledge at his hands and awesome skills, it's really songwriting and structure which decides if band's music is crap or gold.

It's just shame that their songwriting sucks because they seem to have talent to make good albums because it's not really harmful in the end if you get bored after listening to half an hour of this, but it's really bad if you get bored when you listen to individual tracks and it is excatly what has happened to me while listening to this record. If you are a huge listener of death metal, you might like Slachtbeest but better option for us others is to find better bands and leave this album where it belongs, collecting dust in record store's shelf.

This is really brutal. Until now I thought that the most brutal pure (not grinding) death metal album is Hate Eternal’s KoAK, but I was wrong.
Slachtbeest is without any stops or slowing. Ten pieces of ultrabrutal, non-compromising, very fast death metal. No melodies, no tempo changes (it couldn’t be any faster), only crushing and a deep guttural growling - a 40-minute long death metal track. Perhaps I have said everything what is important: technically the album is perfect (however there no solos, as they would make the tempo slower); precise and fast drummer, the bass is also good (when I hear it), guitar work is excellent. And the vocalist it just what is expected: brutal growling along the whole album.
The disadvantages are similar to the advantages. I cannot take difference among the tracks, and it’s hard to concentrate to the music itself. It’s a bomb of energy, cool when you’re angry, otherwise (to me) too brutal. Really, Cannibal Corpse is a gothic rock band compared to this… If you think the way “the more brutal, the better” this will be your favourit album for a long time.
One more thing. Interestingly, the lyrics are in Dutch. I can’t comment it, as I’m unable of catching even a word of this chaos. If you know Dutch, you might be luckier.