Brodequin "Methods of Execution" Review

Brodequin “Methods of Execution” LP

A lot of death metal doesn’t really appeal to me these days, bands like Deeds of Flesh, Disgorge (CA), Suffocation and Cannibal Corpse among others seem to play, write and sing the same shit over and over again. It just gets damn right boring in my opinion. There are a few exceptions though; one band that caught my attention a few years back was Brodequin. Even though the band doesn’t offer anything new as far as brutal death metal goes. They retain a primitive esque that a lot of the other bands seem to lack. It’s fast, it’s intense and it’s just straight up aggressive. The band was formed by Brothers Mike (guitars) and Jamie Bailey (bass/vocals) who along with Chad Walls (drums) put out two other great records “Instruments of Torture” and “Festival of Death”. The record I’m writing about is their 2004 opus; entitled “Methods of Execution” this is the first album to feature Jon Engman (Foetopsy/Mince Meat/Screaming Afterbirth/Custodian) on drums, and not Chad Walls. The record from start to finish is an aggressive masterpiece (nothing is clean about this record and I mean that in a good way). Even though the material doesn’t change in speed the riffs themselves sound fairly good. The vocal assault which is just a deep guttural inhale doesn’t change too much which usually bothers me, but for this band it works perfectly. I have to say the one thing that really got my attention with this record was the drumming. Engman brings his own style to the band and even though Chad Walls is a good drummer, Engman is just more intense. He breaks the monotony by changing it up with fills and punk style beats where its deemed necessary. The lyrics are gore based, but aren’t the usual zombies eating flesh bullshit. The band actually used historical based concepts to conceive the lyrics for this and all their other opuses. Which is pretty unique and interesting, but Jamie Bailey did major in history so that might be one of the reasons why. The band ends the album with the title track which is actually a dark ambient/ noise piece conceived by Engman. I have to say ending the record on that note is pure genius. Some of the stand out tracks are; “Slaves to the Pyre”, “Pressing to Plead”, “Cast into Torment” and “Verdrinken”, long story short this is the perfect example of less is better.