Quantum Catastrophe

Has it ever happened before, that a metal band sounded like their band name actually applied to them? This is the terrifying - although not so fine - line between autistic brilliance and straight-up mental challenge. It's an unfortunate thing when you're a brutal technical death metal band but your music might vaguely remind some of Japanese cartoon/video-game music. Maybe that's what this is: technical video-game tabs with sped up blast beats played by real life instrumentalists, oh and with the token growler/screamer doing his thing. So props to the guys, they've really, really...really made good use of their metronomes and exhausted to death the old saying "practice makes perfect".

But that saying doesn't take into account a vital component for music: it needs to have a soul. Believe it or not. So, these guys are machines but they wouldn't beat a computer at speed and grid-perfect execution. And a computer would probably write better music than they do, if the formula is making math into death metal music.

Atonality is supposed to be a feat in composition, but these guys spam the hell out of it until it has far exceeded any point of relevance and becomes some mind-numbing writing device. So it's technical and chaotic but that's just the brutal tech-death game, right? Wrong. Nobody said the composition needed to be absolutely random, but these guys either missed the memo or immediately ditched it as they knew the only way they could generate any semblance of relevance is through making tracks with millions of notes, hundreds of riffs, so nobody would notice the glaring lack of song-writing ability onboard.

Can you, the fan, tell one song from another? "Well no, but it sounds so impressive though". Nobody gives a shit about that. Musicians aren't mere instrumentalists. If you're an album-making musician, you can't be judged on how fast you play your instrument and actually have to come up with good musical ideas. There's absolutely no link, no intelligence in correlation between parts or any ability to produce memorable hooks or logical connection between the various segments within parts.

If this were a salad, it would be all the ingredients in your kitchen tossed in together - a basic robot with hands grabbing and throwing food into a large bowl with no discernible intelligence or ability for choice or assessment. But it would do it very, very fast and with certain random foods dropping whole into the bowl and others chopped up in half or in minuscule slices or liquid. It's a condom catastrophe the band have birthed this thing and the people on the album cover are paying the price for it.

This is Brain Drill's second album following on from their solid debut album 'Apocalyptic Feasting'. The band at this point, for those who don't know, has had some changes after reforming since they split in late 2008, early 2009 if from what I've read is correct. The two original members from the first album are vocalist Steve Rathjen and the extremely talented guitarist Dylan Ruskin with the new members being Ivan Manguia on bass and Ron Casey on drums. This album is good and the band have made some improvements but unfortunately there is a huge chunk in this album where you are left with the conclusion: "This is quite repetitive".

To begin with, this album is certainly not as technical as 'Apocalyptic Feasting'; instead Brain Drill has gone with a more melodic approach in some parts of this album. An example would be when in track 2 "Beyond Bludgeoned" the band completely tones down and Dylan Ruskin plays a quite melodic and smooth guitar solo. Although the guitars have taken a more melodic approach it certainly doesn't stop Dylan Ruskin from doing his heavily over complicated and complex tapping arpeggios and riffs which in parts are interesting, but in other parts you get the feeling that he has almost run out of ideas and so continues to play with virtually the same riff but take nothing away from him, he is a highly skilled and talented guitarist.

This is still a fast album with Brain Drill still keeping to their constant blast beats and intense double kick drums, however, I feel the drums do far more in this album than what they did in 'Apocalyptic Feasting'. The production on the drums has improved on this album as I feel we are able to hear the other parts of the drums that were difficult to hear in 'Apocalyptic Feasting' because of the constant blast beats and smashing kick drums in that album. The production as a whole on this album is good.

Steve Rathjen has retained his guttural sound and harshness to his vocals and he doesn't scream as much as what he did in 'Apocalyptic Feasting'. When he does scream it is isn't one of those mid-range screams that just doesn't go with the song at all; it is more of a low-range scream type shout if you know what I'm getting at. Overall, I think the vocals on this album have been improved significantly on this album.

The one major criticism I have of this album is that I get the feeling that Brain Drill are trying to steer away from being overly technical and it is in the latter parts of this album do I feel it the most, especially in the last track, 'Quantum Catastrophe', wherein some parts the track becomes boring and repetitive.

This is not an overly technical album unlike 'Apocalyptic Feasting', Brain Drill have certainly tried to take a more melodic approach whilst also trying to keep their technical side. However, I feel that because of this, the album has sounded repetitive and boring in some parts of the album. Having said that though there are some really interesting and enjoyable parts in this album with my main highlight being track 4 "Beyond Bludgeoned" which tries to be technical and melodic whilst also having a fast tempo and I think Brain Drill have succeeded here.

We haven't had an album from this band in 5 years now and I'm not absolutely sure whether the band is still performing at shows and festivals and so I highly doubt we will see another album from this band.

Brutal tech-death in its most unrefined and pitifully stereotype-laden form is about the best way I can describe this album. Even if you aren't going to go through the trouble of bringing something new to the plate in your genre, the least you could do would be to execute the sound you're going for in a somewhat smart manner. Sadly, this album lacks elements of both the former and latter qualities I just mentioned. The album is essentially an onslaught of "been there, done that."

The drumming, as one might expect from this genre, is ridiculously quick. This quality isn't bad on its own, it's just that EVERY song on the album has them move at lightning speed in very similar patterns. The drums, much like the guitars, are mainly here to do one thing. Be as fast as humanly possible. The album is the perfect example of being speedy simply for the sake of being speedy. There's no actual artistic reasoning or thought behind it, simply mindless "br00tality."

The guitar-work is filled to the brim with your usual, run-of-the-mill technical solos and occasional, heavy riffs. Complexity doesn't immediately mean good, and this album is no exception to the rule. Sure, Brain Drill isn't exactly on the same level as Decapitated or anything, but COME ON! The very least you could do is pretend like you have the smallest amount of interest in what you're doing. While listening to this album, all I can picture in my mind is the band intently staring at their instruments as they are played. The album is like a tech-death machine with no soul behind it. The guitars will, very rarely, have a solid riff played, but this quality is heavily outweighed by the amount of boring, uninteresting junk being thrown into your ears. Speaking of uninteresting junk, even the death growls here sound boring and lifeless.

This album, in my eyes, is a pile of garbage. Every stereotype of the tech-death subgenre is found here. This wouldn't be nearly as irritable if the band made it appear that they were trying to sound a little different than the thousands of other bands which play the same style. Not only that, but it also would have been nice if the band didn't make it feel like their brutality was so forced. Bands like Meshuggah have their brutal sound come naturally, but this album falls flat on its face. For anyone looking for a heavy album, this album is great. For anyone looking for a quality album, steer clear of this one.

In Braindrill’s short history in the death metal world they have attained a reputation as a band completely foreign to melody and groove. As evidenced by their previous record, Apocalyptic Feasting, Braindrill exists entirely within the niche of hyper-technical-wanksturbation bands, and have zero grasp on the concept of ‘songwriting’. However, this time around the story is slightly different. Slightly.

Quantum Catastrophe as a whole includes one critical element to a death metal record that Apocalyptic Feasting was missing: grooves. Yes, the groove sections are poorly interwoven and sometimes make no sense with the song at all, but at least they provide a reprieve from the seemingly endless deluge of notes bombarding the listener’s ears. For a band this technical and atonal, listening becomes painful without a break from the madness, and here of all places is where Braindrill delivers. For example, the last forty-five seconds in 'Nemesis of Neglect' perfectly fade out the song with simple style and a hint of dissonance.

When listening to this record, it is very difficult to differentiate between songs enough to mention any notable ones. I recognize the album opener, Obliteration Untold, because of the killer bass solo riff that starts the song. However for the most part, every other song ends up sounding nearly identical to each other in at least one section. Braindrill’s formula is simple: blast beats played over atonal and unstructured riffage as fast as humanly possible, supplemented by the occasional headbangable groove. There are numerous moments on Quantum Catastrophe where I think to myself “Hey that was really cool!” But by the end of the song, I usually forget about these moments; a result of being aurally bludgeoned for three and a half minutes.

There is no single song I enjoy all the way through. Obliteration Untold has a great bass break to open the record. Nemesis of Neglect has a fantastic groove at the end. Monumental Failure has a great sweep section within the first fifteen seconds. But at some point during all these tracks, I become tired of the formula, especially for all 16+ minutes of the title-track/album closer.

A note on the album production: Zack Ohren did a great job producing this record for the most part. The drums sound solid, guitars are meaty and vocals are not overly high in the mix (as was the problem for Apocalyptic Feasting). My one gripe is with the bass. For a band featuring one guitarist, I wish the bass was less buried in the mix. Ivan Munguia’s basslines are pretty incredible, but they are too quiet for my liking.

Although a huge step up from their debut, Quantum Catastrophe spirals downward into pure annoyance about 3/4's of the way through. There is just far too much going on at once, but in small quantities, Braindrill's latest can provide some quality death metal enjoyment.

My gripes for Quantum Catastrophe are hard to verbalize. I don't hate this album with a burning passion like so many others seem to, yet at the same time I would not feel heartbroken in the slightest if all of the members were to die in a freak gardening accident. All of the band members are precise beyond my comprehension, and I'm left with my head spinning and my balls throbbing after every song; and while honest riffs may be few and far between, the sheer intensity and copious frills are enough to satisfy most tech death fans. But in the end, that's all this is. It's a frilly and heavily made up mannequin for tech death fans, and nobody else. I'm not saying Hooded Menace should start playing thrash or that Autopsy should take up hip hop purely to include new fans, but Brain Drill's second full length is so mindbogglingly technical, is actually alienating.

So, while Brain Drill may not be a gateway band, they are satisfying enough for an established fan of the style. The vocals are nothing to write home about, but they fill the space and do their job quite well. Unfortunately, while both his low and mid range screams are adequate, they are predictable to the point of infuriating. While the instrumentals are entirely chaotic, he switches between his two styles with a pace and certainty equatable to that of the fucking tides. Maybe my legal and totally not downloaded copy is a little goofy on the quality front, but it seems like there is almost a computerized tinge to the higher screams. The gargling rasp sounds almost artificial when he utilizes the higher register. But maybe this is just my mind playing tricks on me due to the robotic precision of Ron Casey's drumming. Here's a PSA to all of y'all dolts who don't actually know how triggers work. Yes, the drums are triggered to high hell, but this does not automatically make them fake or programmed. A trigger just ensures that each drum will make the same sound, it's not like he isn't actually playing that incredibly fast. I'm not saying metal drums are never programmed or artificial, but I guess a really large pet peeve of mine is when people dismiss a band/album due to triggered drums.

And on that note, let me comment on the instrumentals. This is where the main reason behind the score and title come from. Throughout the entire half hour of the record, my attention is repeatedly grabbed and lost about twelve billion times per song. While my brain does melt a little bit with each listen, half of the melting is caused by amazement and the other half by sheer boredom. This is an album of nanoseconds. I love the album for eight nanoseconds, become bored for the next four, love it again for the next seven, and then hate it for the next ten. This never stops, and this constant fluctuation is caused by the very element of the music that makes it so enjoyable for some, and completely despicable for others, the chaos. There is almost no structure to any song, and rarely are riffs repeated more than twice. Maybe it's because I have an enormous stiffy for SikTh, but the fast, dissonant, and unpredictable nature of the songs isn't really a big deal to me, it's just that Brain Drill is completely tasteless in this department. There is virtually no songwriting skill involved with about 80% of the record, as this is mainly a showcase for their chops. While writing this, I made note of an exceptional riff that was used once in the middle of the record, and for the life of me I cannot remember which song it was on, and I believe that revelation should serve as an everlasting testament to what Quantum Catastrophe really is, which about as memorable as brushing your teeth. The reason the album earns a failing grade is because of how unmemorable it is.

Really, I have no reason to listen to this other than to headbang for a bit and maybe scare some of my less metal friends. Brain Drill is as technical as a Kardashian ass is enormous, but it is as memorable as washing your hands and as enjoyable as stubbing your toe. If constant blast beats and nigh unending harmonized sweeps turn you on, then go and buy this right now. If you like to remember what you just listened to, then don't bother. Quantum Catastrophe will blow your mind with it's technicality and precision, but you won't be able to give a shit after ten minutes.

There's a joke in here somewhere....

Over the last few years there has been a new breed of technical death metal bands that have been sprouting up across the United States. These bands are mainly devoted to one thing: technicality. Following bands like Necrophagist and Spawn of Possession, this new wave of tech death is a prime showcase for what talent, drive, and determination can do when a musician puts his mind to it. It's also a prime showcase of how not to write songs. While the aforementioned Necrophagist and Spawn of Possession have at least good skills when it comes to song structure, most of the bands in the new litter of tech death have either very underdeveloped writing skills or none at all, with only certain exceptions to this rule such as Origin and The Faceless. Brain Drill falls into that category. While all of the albums, Quantum Catastrophe included, are extremely high in terms of technicality and musicianship, they are not the best in terms of actually writing songs.

One of the biggest complaints bands like Brain Drill get are that there's zero variety in their music. I can definitely see some merit to that claim. Without looking at the song titles and running times it does seem very hard for a first time listener to distinguish one song from another. The keen essential point of Brain Drill's music is to give your mind an overload of insanity. All of the songs have the same instrumental techniques to them: hammer ons, pull offs, tremolo picking, bass slapping, bass and guitar tapping, and blast beats. Many sections are recycled for later songs. The song structure is virtually nonexistent; there's no verses or choruses to speak of, and while the band does flow cleanly from one part of a song to the next, there's no real connection between parts of the songs beyond that. There are solos every so often but they're all the same excessive wanking all the other songs have. All the songs are at the same tempo: fast as fuck. In terms of actual BPM, I'd say anywhere from 250-280. Another big thing is that some people just aren't conditioned to listen to this kind of music. I know a lot of people who listened to the first song and shut it off half a minute in solely because it's a complete auditory overload. Hell, it took me a while to get accustomed to the sound of Brain Drill, and I've been listening to and playing extreme metal for years. The final track is of epic length (especially for death metal, as rarely do bands like this do songs exceeding 5 minutes), specifically it is slightly over 16 minutes. That's beyond Vital Remains territory. One thing many people have a problem with is just how quantized this album is, specifically on the drums. For those who don't know music jargon, quantizing means to edit a part for accuracy. The proof behind the editing here lies in a video Brain Drill posted to their Youtube channel of Dylan Ruskin and Ron Casey playing the track "Monumental Failure" from this album. Casey isn't entirely accurate in his playing, but when you listen to the album version, it is 100% spot on perfect. Many people consider this cheating or that it robs the album of whatever humanity it could've had, humanity meaning the idea that albums with slight inaccuracies are more enjoyable because you know humans recorded it that way. I fall slightly into that line of thinking. I've always hated the overproduced, sterile sound many metal albums have today, and Quantum Catastrophe falls squarely into the category of overproduced and sterile.

One thing that nobody can doubt though is just how talented these boys are. Even if they all use the same techniques over and over again, they are masterful in how well they play their instruments. Dylan Ruskin is insane on the guitar, going totally overboard with the guitar techniques listed above. Although Ivan Munguia is almost inaudible on the bass here, there are a few moments where his technique shines through, specifically the tapped intro to the opening track "Obliteration Untold". Ron Casey replaces "Lord" Marco Pitruzzella on drums, using all the same things Marco used: extreme double bass, blast beats, and gravity blasts. I will say it right now. I fucking hate gravity blasts. I think it's just a way to create excessive noise that shouldn't be there; a white noise effect if you will. That's the impression I get from both Marco and Ron overusing the gravity blast. Vocalist Steve Rathjen would be perfect in any death metal band. His growls are deep and guttural, and his high screams are raspy and powerful. All four of these players are extremely skilled with their instrument of choice, and should be lauded as such.

The lyrics are rather good if you ask me. The album is a pseudo-concept album revolving around the prophecy that the world will end in 2012. Vocalist Rathjen wrote the lyrics, and he did a damn good job of talking about all the different things that could happen during a doomsday event and what could happen to people during a doomsday event: falling through crevices created by earthquakes, drowning in waters brought to shore by floods, people running around on fire, the sun being blocked out by volcanic ash clouds, and it all comes to a head in the epic final track "Quantum Catastrophe", with all of humanity dying as Mother Earth takes her final breaths. If there's any other thing about this album that should be lauded other than the instrumentation, it's the lyrics. They bring pictures to one's mind about what exactly a modern doomsday even would look like. And while it doesn't change my mind about 2012 being bullshit, it certainly makes me wonder what would happen if a doomsday event were to happen in our age.

Sadly, the really good lyrics and amazing instrumentation does not make up for the mediocre songwriting and plastic production sound. Brain Drill really needs to step up and add some sort of variety to their music, because if they keep making the exact same songs over and over again for future releases, people will turn away from them and the band will die a lonely death. This goes for any of the modern tech death bands more concerned with how fast you can play or how many hammer ons you can fit into a 4 minute time period. Don't try to rip off Necrophagist and Spawn of Possession and Origin or any tech death band that gets it right, but please do try to be original. It'll make my listening to your albums much more pleasurable.

http://www.youtube.com/user/Subrick

It's technical, I guess. I mean, at this point I'm inclined to believe that the standard of technicality in so-called 'technical' death metal these days is high enough that most of the major guitarists out there could probably sweep like this; I think Brain Drill is the only band with little enough taste that they would do it as extensively as this. Now I don't take issue with the extreme technicality- or, rather, how many fucking notes there are everywhere- but I do take issue with the fact that I can't remember what any of these songs sound like five minutes after hearing them. Brain Drill has personality, but it's basically just 'they play really fast and sweepy' and it ends there. Not a good thing.

I'm not going to say it's mindless or it's just noise because most of the music I listen to is mindless noise and this definitely isn't either of those things. Hell, Brain Drill's music seems pretty easy to follow in general; yeah, there's a lot of guitar theatrics but it's not like the time signatures and textures are particularly off the wall. It's loud and complicated but it's not difficult to grasp in the way Malignancy is. What it is difficult to do is tolerate for more than ten minutes at a time; over forty minutes of this shit is like running a fucking audio marathon since the band's name pretty accurately describes the feeling of the music itself. I'm tiring of this shit by the end of the first track and you expect me to sit through eight of these fuckers? I'm only a man.

That being said, I do like the idea of the last track: a big sixteen minute epic where the technicality is reserved for certain peaks in the song, the band experiments with dynamics more, and a good chunk of the running time is dedicated to (surprisingly well-composed) ambiance. Frankly, I think if they'd isolated the title track and put it on a disc alone this release would be way better for it; it contains everything the band does in one place but distributes it better so it's not just a constant flurry of blasts and sweeps in your ear for way longer than you'd ever want it. It's a neat idea and I hope they expand on that in the future. Chances are, though, that they won't and that'll be a fluke that most of the kids who listen to this band won't understand.

Brain Drill is already one of the most absurdly divisive bands in extreme metal today (which is fucking stupid since they're just not interesting enough to deserve that) so my review will hardly convince or dissuade anyone from buying anything. If you do buy it, though, at least be aware that you're paying for what amounts to a giant tech demo with very little in the way of compositional memorability. Then again if you're buying a Brain Drill CD you probably just want to hear the SICK SWEEPS BRO so have at it.

Technical death metal is one of the most polarizing genres among metalheads. Some will argue for hours that Necrophagist are some of the most talented musicians ever to walk the earth while others will say that Decrepit Birth noodle on forever without any kind of musical direction. Both of these arguments have credence. However, I haven’t seen a single band give critics so many dichotomous opinions of the same thing as much as Brain Drill have.

In order to really enjoy this album, you have to put yourself in a certain frame of mind. Hold brutal technical death metal bands up to the standard of other brutal technical death metal bands, not up to your favorite masters of gloom and doom. Firstly, you have to recognize that part of the point of this music is confusion. You’re not really supposed to be able to soak in every note you hear. Quantum Catastrophe drills your brain (pun intended) with so many angular, blistering melodies that I don’t think even the band can fully comprehend their own music. That’s why this album gets a 4 out of 5 and not a 2 out of 10.

What you’ll find here is very simple: turbo-speed guitar soloing, brutal blast-beats, and ferocious growls. The bass, unfortunately, falls very deep into the cavernous mix, only to be heard by the most attentive listeners. This is fairly sad due to the fact that bassist Ivan Munguia demonstrates his virtuosity with quite possibly the fastest bass intro ever on “Obliteration Untold.” It only lasts about two seconds, but it still doesn’t fail to boggle my mind. More solos from him would be a quite welcome addition. However, everything else for the most part works as it should.

Though they do manage to be as brutal as possible (exactly what is needed from this type of band) I find it very hard to listen to this for a long time. Getting through the whole album for one full spin was tough enough. I would have liked to have heard some variation, like Death did with “Voice of the Soul.” It really helps to keep the album on its feet and not allow the formula to get too, well, formulaic (it doesn’t help that the closing track has 11 minutes of constant death metal). However, in short bursts, Brain Drill are pretty damn good. If you are able to handle over-the-top technicality and unrelenting brutality, then I think it’s pretty likely you’ll agree with me.

[find this review and more at http://www.mindovermetal.org/]

On the surface, California's Brain Drill seem to me as if someone had actually drilled into my own cranium, rifled around in the mushy gray matter, withdrawn all of the nightmare-stuff relating to everything I dislike about most modern death metal, and then gone in to the studio to rub it all out simultaneously. Their debut album Apocalyptic Feasting was a bewildering drive-by of blasting beats, blunt vocals and near constant arpeggio sweeping which felt like Necrophagist and Origin had sired an ugly child together, and I found that it provoked no response or resonance from me, with the possible exception of stifling a yawn.

Is it impressive that a cadre of human beings can perform material so excessively unrelenting without taking a breath once in awhile? With the exception of the vocalist, Steve Rathjen, who gets the easy job here, I would say that it certainly appears to be strenuous on the arms. Dylan Ruskin's performance is a mix of his many sweeps and solos, far too many in each particular track, and the brutal riffing that lies between. Bassist Ivan Munguia (formerly of fellow Californian extremists Odious Mortem) is every bit his match, fluttering all over the frets, while the drummer Ron Casey turns in the expected, robotic skin beating narrative that so many of these modern, tech death albums share in common. As an exercise in the lengths to which a human can perform death tropes in a repeated pattern, with predictable if excessive results, Brain Drill does not disappoint. In fact, we might have found a viable new fuel source here. What exactly do these gentlemen diet on?

But here's the catch: when this band actually takes a breather from the endless surge of trying to bury every other band under the sun with their incessant energies, they actually DO produce some decent music. A few examples I can think of here would be the solo section in "Beyond Bludgeoned", beginning after the 2:00 mark, with some morose backing chords that support a vile, twisting lead guitar, or the penetrating bursts of evil that peak out behind the obfuscating walls of wanking in "Nemesis of Neglect". The nearly endless "Quantum Catastrophe" itself also has a very cool lead segment about 5:00 minutes in, not to mention a great melodic pattern soon after. The problem then, is that you require a lot of patience to get to such moments, because so much of what they emit here is uninteresting, creative ballgaggery, and merely a stress test for the human frame. Muscles, bones and cartilage flexed to their very limits.

I have no inbred aversion to technical death metal done right. I didn't actually hate Quantum Catastrophe, and I can't really fault these guys for trying to take it out as far as possible. This is what some metal musicians feel the inclination to do. This is how they leave their mark. But it is clearly a symptom of a larger issue: the soulless majority of our metal consumer culture, who want their meals served to them hot and fast, without any time taken to savor the nuance of its ingredients. Brain Drill can shred with all the feel of a machine. In fact, on a point for point basis for technical precision, they can play most other bands under the rug. Can it get any more extreme than this without turning it all over to a computer? Why then, when I awake tomorrow morning, or next week, or next month, or next year even, will I feel no compulsion to listen to this record? Why can a group of individuals with such a communal wealth of technical ability not write a death metal record I want to hear?

-autothrall
http://www.fromthedustreturned.com