Brodequin
Methods Of Execution

Brodequin are, rightfully so, considered one of the most extreme entities in extreme Metal; how did they achieve this? The recipe is simple and economical, and you can easily use the leftovers you have at home to create an excellent Brutal group "alla Diavola".

Go to the United States, open the refrigerator and pull out a decent guitarist; make sure he's not the most alert, but has tendons in his forearm about the size of my thumb (this will allow him to play at monstrous speeds without having to resort to Lasonil every two songs). Let his hair grow, have him gain about fifteen kilos and put him back in the fridge until you have the other elements ready. The second ingredient you need is a singer/bassist with a degree in history (like the old Bruce Dickinson but meaner) and vocal cords as thick as my wrist (this will enable him to sing in growl for the next three centuries without his neck exploding). Make sure he knows how to play the bass decently, then shave his head, have him read dozens of books on thanatology, and give him a starvation wage; at this point, you can put him back in the fridge. The last ingredient is the hardest to find; what you need now is a monstrous drummer, extremely fast, with tendons in his arms as thick as my thigh (you can already guess what they are for), with zero inventiveness but capable of going into Blast at five-hundred-eighty-six different increasing speeds. Ensure he is sufficiently idiotic not to have any aspirations other than being the best spring drummer in the history of Brutal Death and sufficiently "affable" to play eleven all-Blast Beat songs without whining or taking a breath. Pull the other two out of the fridge and give them enough money to record three studio albums; if you're lucky and followed my instructions well, you'll have on your hands one of the most famous Slam groups in circulation and the main competitors of Devourment and Disgorge.

The essential lines, dear readers, in my way, I've described them: remains to define why, despite none of them being a phenomenon of originality, I give them such a high score and why they stand out from the other two I mentioned.

Disgorge are the best in the Slam field, at least that's my humble opinion; very technical, very violent, expressive in their own way. Devourment are the most acclaimed but technically not up to much and their style is decidedly too copied. Brodequin are the engineers of Slam; they are cold, dry, linear, in fact, geometric. Their pieces hurt; that's it. You start at a hundred per hour and finish at a hundred per hour in a "Ring Composition" that, despite what one might expect, leaves something behind. It leaves a sense of completeness, suggesting that our intents were precisely those of making a piece like this: a piece where to understand a riff it takes four listens due to the bad production, but when you understand it, it gets into your head because it is intentionally violent and furious. The drums stand out only for the speed, the riffing for how it bites, unnecessarily strong. You breathe an atmosphere not excessively tense; skimming through the lyrics only talks of torture and capital punishments described in a very composed manner and without dwelling on the macabre element, which removes the morbid aura surrounding so many similar works. What remain are bare, essential lyrics, perfectly matching with our musically concise proposal stripped to the bone. Forget journeys into the mind of the typical psychopath, Brodequin talks to us about death from the perspective of men perfectly in control of their mental faculties, they talk about socially accepted sadism, about an excited crowd attending executions without batting an eye. All elements found in the pure and detached violence of their sound.

Songs that are on average brief follow one another virtually devoid of distinguishing traits; all are equally devastating and equally furious. Determined, regular, heavy.
And you reach the end of the album with the desire to listen again to "Punishment Without Mercy" or "Tyburn Fields" solely by virtue of their merciless hammering.

Brodequin are a chapter unto themselves in Brutal Death; personally, I am quite anxious to see a new work of theirs considering this album, from 2004, is their most recent work. "Methods Of Execution" is not suited for those seeking technique, compositional refinement, experimentation; this is an album, like the rest of their discography, suitable only for those who want to contemplate pure destruction. If three professional Killers had picked up instruments and used them with the same cold indifference with which they use a gun, their music would be identical to that of Brodequin.