Dead Brain Cells

One day I walked into one of the most famous metal shops in my city and, looking at the LPs, I immediately paid attention to a curious cover that instantly caught my eye and it was the one by D.B.C.’s debut album from 1987. I hadn’t enough money for it and I put it again at its place for another time. In the meanwhile, I started to search for information about them, getting always more and more curious till the day that I decided to buy it. You know when you are so attracted by the cover art at the point that you imagine that the music inside is a direct reflex of it? Well, I can consider this the right case and the only complain I have is about some mid-paced sections and the not so great production.

The album starts with one of the best tracks here and surely one of the most brutal, “Deadlock”. The first assault is malevolent and the up tempo parts are well done. The guitars have good riffs but in some parts I would have preferred more impact from them instead of the stopped riffs that anyway, are not in groove style. The ones during the up tempo parts are far more fluent and relentless. Maybe the production is a bit too weak for the volumes…yes, because it’s very good for the cleanness of the sound for the various instruments but the LP volume is not so incisive. Anyway, we go on with “Monument” that is better during the fast parts with good solos too.

The mid-paced sections are a bit common in some parts while they acquire more power when the guitars duets are more present. “Lies” and “Power and Corruption” are two examples of non compromise thrash metal with loads of hardcore elements inside, especially in the essential but in your face riffage and the restless, violent drumming that reaches incredible levels of nastiness. The vocals are raging and a bit anonymous but mainly enjoyable with their burden of suffocated anger that must come out in some ways. You can hear truly well the power of this band when they decide to play fast. In that case they are unmatchable for intensity.

The good, dramatic mid tempo parts can be found in “Public Suicide” while the ones in “Negative Reinforcement” are remarkable for their rawness that so often reminded me the very first Nuclear Assault. The bass is always pounding behind the other instruments and it’s sufficient to pump up the volumes to hear it well. The stop and go parts and the furious restarts show no mercy and the band is truly compact in its devastating march towards destruction. The solos breaks are out of nowhere and they astonish because they are just demonstrations of anger and impulsivity through unmelodic and full of hate parts on tremolo picking.

Going on, the intensity grows and we face the belligerent “Outburst”, “M.I.A.” and “The Vice” that really capture our attention through long series of pissed off parts and nasty vocals parts. Overall, I liked this album especially for the faster tracks. There’s nothing new here but now than more “old” equals “good”. Thrashers, watch out!

“…deeper and deeper you sink into his darkness…”

With the bad milk smell of self-prognosis leering over this thing like a hungry vulture, I approached Dead Brain Cells with cold, dread-dragged feet. Yep, just as I feared the album was self-titled, cruelly arming this new four-piece from Montreal with a moniker that was simultaneously denouncing, undermining, and trite, as if the vision of metal being accepted as a serious musical style didn’t have enough woes to hurdle. I’ve always wondered why bands blatantly aim for their foot like this. DBC’s one of ‘em. Were they so secure in their local standing that they thought people outside their narrow geographic would gaze upon their magnitude-eroding name and typical skull sleeve and gravitate toward the thing like it was a new Blizzard PC game? Guess they did, and more than likely it’s this faulty first impression that often stalled the band’s scene status at the Canadian border. That’s what some of us who care chalk it up to, anyway. Faulty first impression? Uh huh. Faulty because the visuals – initialed name and inactive artwork – were hamstringed right out of the gate and what could be seen hobbling down the track was a gazeless, everyday George Romero ghoul - nominally scary, not very original, and easily evaded. It wouldn’t be until it was close enough for us to smell its fetid breath that we realized it was actually driven by a virile, headstrong, and perceptive bluster that deserved a better fate than being shot at the end of the race with the rest of the losers. Unfortunately by then many spectators had already hit the road.

So what’s often received by the masses is a debut painted as a flat black, straight and narrow bruiser that once in a while swings a dark gray, crossover left hook; a viable interpretation if you’re just passing by, but not very insightful. Slow down for a better whiff. You’ve already paid the admission fee, so what’s the hurry? Sure, while “Lies”, “Outburst”, “Final Act”, and most of “Power and Corruption” glow tumultuously with a similar description, it’s the others that have seen more of the painter’s tray. Not the whole thing, but only part of it.

“Public Suicide” and “M.I.A.” are privy to more dramatic, progressively-minded hues that may not ring as bright as some of the more recognized artists in the field, but in that area these tunes conquer the others on the lp without much trouble save for “Tempest”, a song that tightwalks the tint of fairly sharp and melodic tech-thrash. If velocity is black in nature, then “Terrorist Mind”, “The Vice”, and “Trauma X” are yin-yanged with a white side of heavy-striding mid-pace and grody, deliberate doomstep. Phil Dakin’s vox fits the bill with a craggy, inhospitable tone that’s as translucent and water color-based as pine tar.

In addition, things aren’t what they seem musically. While dirty and deadly speed is always heating on some nearby burner and solos are few and far between, it’s during the more resourceful dignity of these aforementioned tracks that Eddie Shanini and Gerry Ouellette can claim a corner of the gallery as their own, a corner that would find some better illumination in a few years.

Within half a spin, Dead Brain Cells shed its spoiled dairy spoor and squashed most of my fear, and by the aptly-titled “Final Act” it was pretty clear these thirteen tracks had done more than grunt themselves though the uncurving, street-level path to thrash’s second tier. No, this thing breathed easier despite its flat-looking nose, and to coincide with this unexpected respiration, DBC saw more hang time above the common and crowded C-grade avenue. It also refilled the paint rack for Universe, a follow-up brushed with broader, more involved strokes.

Realistically, there were worse bands with better imagery that went about as far or less.

A then-relatively unknown Randy Burns produces this thickly.

This was one of the first "crossover" bands I heard when I was a teenager, and it made quite the impression on me. Phil Dakin's belligerent vocals and the fast & furious riffing (with only brief, jagged solos here and there) and drumming was like a hammer to the back of the head back then and still holds up pretty well today. DBC were quite underrated and never made it too far outside of Canada, as far as I know (at least they never played my hometown in Boston that I remember in any capacity) , and it's a shame, because they had something here.

I especially like "Lies", with Dakin sounding especially pissed off as he spits out his nasal, snarling vocals, and "Public Suicide" (especially vicious lyrics on this tune). The rest of the album roars by like a trucker in a hurry to get to the truck stop so he can piss, eat, and get a hooker, and hits about as hard. Very hard, that is. They were not at all "groove" oriented like the current crop of bad metalcore bands out there who think that hardcore is slow and dirgey odes to beating people up to beat people up to--they were faster than a speeding bullet by the standards of the mid-80s, and it was great! Not Cryptic Slaughter blast beat fast, but just on the verge of out of control. Unfortunately, they were left by the wayside, and more's the pity. This is an underrated crossover gem that needs to be heard!