Brutai seem to have popped up out of nowhere to a huge round of applause. Aside from those who religiously visit Tech Fest, not many people talked about them, and now here we are: a debut album on Transcend Music, Radio 1 play, a load of shows with Soilwork and Textures, forthcoming ones with Devil You Know, and this review.
Brutai, though coined as “modern metal”, seem to sit slightly easier if you think of them as tech metal. Think Tesseract but a bit more dirty, with bits of No Consequence thrown in on the really heavy bits. ‘Born’ is very much what you would expect from that kind of music. The electronic elements are a nice touch – they’ve been done before by tech bands but they’re done tastefully here, not overt or in-your-face but the presence of them is enough to make you sit up and take notice.
Unfortunately Brutai fall into the trap that so many modern tech bands fall into: they have a clearly defined sound, but within that sound there isn’t much variation. Aside from the occasionally massive chorus, ridiculously heavy section, or ‘Never Change’ which is a cast-iron banger if ever there was one, there isn’t really that much to differentiate between many of the songs, which leads to the album blurring together a bit. Extended periods of clean singing over riffy chugging is fine in moderation, but when it’s four tracks in a row it can become monotonous.
Having said that, when Brutai do get it right, they get it really right. Already mentioned ‘Never Change’ is a standout track and opening song ‘Relapse’ is a remarkably good introduction to the album. In order to improve on future releases, Brutai need to take their sound and fuck with it a bit. Introduce more dynamic changes, try a few different things and take themselves a little further out of their comfort zone. If they can do that and do it well (as they have no reason not to be able to do) then there’s every chance we could be hearing and seeing a lot more of Brutai on increasingly bigger stages as the years go by.