RSS Feed


BREWED & CANNED
Execute The Innocent

Blacksmith (2014)
Rating: 8/10

With a name like Brewed & Canned I was expecting some new wave, dire sleaze metal band with big, manufactured hair and plastic cigarettes. But instead, what do we get? Well, this Austrian combo is a relentless death metal band who have actually been around since 1998, but previous to this ten-tracker have only released a trio of demos.

The quintet would have gone down in my estimation if they’d just been another of those pig-squealing grindcore bands, but instead, Brewed & Canned play an extremely aggressive style of death metal that is fast and furious throughout; rarely does it stop for breath as the chesty vocals sneer across the landscape of utterly battering bass, those flesh-filled guitar licks and bulbous riffs, and not forgetting the juddering percussion.

Equally at home with slower moments, the overall sound and style of this band is typified with the excellent assault of ‘Behind 8 Doors’, where the bass slaps and trundles with dominance and the vocals work well in cohorts with the fleshy riffs. Opener ‘Multiple Bone Injection’ and ‘Harvest’ opt for pace over slower precision, meanwhile, whereas ‘Behind 8 Doors’ and ‘Perverse Reflections’ combine slower, more menacing elements and also technical prowess.

Far from being just another mouldy replica of old school death metal bands, I feel that with Brewed & Canned, despite not being a complex beast, they are able to combine varying extreme styles with ease, bringing to mind the likes of Autopsy’s gore-obsessed drooling one moment and the next upping the aggression to puke out something similar to, say, Cannibal Corpse. Even so, it’s never as simple as that, because at times the solos are so intriguing as they squirm their way through the morbid layers of gore.

‘Killfuckfeed’ is, as its name suggests, a bludgeoning axe to the head with its speedy approach, while ‘Into Slavery’ has nice touches of groove that hint at Lamb Of God. And the title track incorporates enough technical ability along with traditional metal influence to prove that these guys are far more than just a one-dimensional leviathan.

Of all the tracks on offer, only ‘Breathing The End’ lacks the intensity to make this album a devastating foray into modern extreme metal. However, one can’t argue with the twisted melodies of ‘Vomiting Liquified Innards’, which despite its blatantly over the top moniker, is in fact one of the album’s most varied moments that showcases the talent of this group as it mixes blistering pace and darker, mid-tempo morbidity.

I certainly didn’t really know what to expect from these guys, but although the sound of Brewed & Canned is one very much rooted in the early to mid 90s death metal scene, Execute The Innocent is such an enjoyable slab of death metal that it has literally restored my faith in the modern era of bands.

Neil Arnold

<< Back to Album & EP Reviews



Related Posts via Categories
Share