(TheMadIsraeli prepared this review of the new album by Germany’s Brutal Unrest, coming in January from Hammerheart Records.)

I don’t demand originality or diversity of sound when it comes to my metal. All I ever ask of you is that if you aren’t going to do something interesting or experimental, write good riffs, show that you have a fundamental understanding of what makes metal great. And so I tend to like only super-out-there experimental/avant-garde/progressive extreme metal, or super-meat-and-potatoes, tried-and-true metal that pays homage to the roots and legacy of the genre.

Brutal Unrest definitely fall into the latter category, a majestic German death metal behemoth that listened to too much Aeon, Deicide, Suffocation, and Dismember and came out sounding exactly like the above album cover looks. Continue reading »