Legalize Cannibalism: Five Brutal Death Metal bands for aspiring butchers.

You, the reader, probably the metal aficionado neck beard, before you start ranting on about the terms used in this article to describe this genre of music, I'd like to ask you first to walk away from the laptop, ask your mother for €20, buy as much worth of pencils and swallow each and every one of them. Brutal Death Metal, Goregrind, Porngrind, Slam Death Metal...shut the fuck up. You know what I'm talking about. Now that you have enough lead in your system, you can return to your cute Youtube argument on that Deicide video.

Death metal is the reason Dream Theater fans hate us. Brutal Death Metal is the reason Death Metal fans hate us. That's the thing about metal, a lot of people hate each other. Now usually those that habour this intense loathing and reinforce the segregation are those basement dwelling teenagers armed with Youtube accounts, so it isn't fair to say that one can't enjoy all genres of evil and that the general metal "community" is full of hermits. It is, however, very fair to say that Brutal Death Metal is one of the least accessible forms of modern extreme music.

Where traditional Death Metal takes a sacrificial dagger to the heart of the listener, Brutal Death Metal takes its tongue to the blood pool, spreads out the torso and feasts hungrily on the innards. BDM is essentially Death Metal's deformed anthropophagus (Another word I've been dying to use) with an insatiable hunger for human flesh. It attacks you with grindcore's unrelenting speed, but guts you with the technical aptitude of a surgeon on crack.

Still not following me here? That's okay, let's be frank here, it all sounds the exact same to someone who isn't an avid listener.

As a nice little precursor to the Amputated gig in Dublin this Friday, I offer you five Brutal Death Metal bands that will watch you from afar, follow you to the library, learn your daily routine and eventually torture you to death with a blow torch in the back of a Hiace van. Get ready to be repulsed.

Defeated Sanity

There is definitely something filthy in the water in Germany. This is apparent in the number and quality of BDM bands that seem to pour out of the country. Defeated Sanity are among the veterans of this vile, putrid music and have been piling up the bodies since 1994. They have consistently delivered the kind of festering brutality, as well as technical strength, that puts them a cut above many of the more modern BDM bands of the moment. They're the frigid war veterans that sneers at the spoiled generation that "have it easy".

Katalepsy

These Russian fuckers know exactly what nerves to slice. Their breakneck speed and technical artistry will leave you shaken, stunned and checking that your stomach is still where it's supposed to be. Their approach to this music, lyrically, is very different to the standardized "kill, consume, repeat" themes of most BDM bands and this sets them apart from the flock. Lyrics like; The shapeless nightmare in center of Chaos, which abominable curls and boil in the heart of Infinity, in incomprehensible dark chambers out of Time, reek of Lovecraftian imagery. I hate to use the term, but you could almost call Katalepsy a "close-reading" band. We all love knuckle-dragging death metal, but these Russian hellions seem to combine a kind of maturity with the riff-heavy nastiness we all know and adore.

Fumes of Decay

There's a wretched atmosphere painted by Fumes of Decay. Perhaps it's in the album artwork or in their static accent, but there's something about this band's music that paints a terribly gruesome picture for you. Their first full-length Devouring the Excavated (2011) sends you to a desolate, alien landscape where survival is feckless. You're fucked from 0:01. Each track on the album races along speedily, never stopping, never lessening in intensity. Bands like Fumes of Decay and Spain's Wormed are comparable in that they deliver BDM with an excessive inhumanity that is absent in other bands. They genuinely sound like monsters. Though they keep with the uniform of BDM, they manage to avoid the pig-squealing clichés associated with the genre. Approach with caution.

Abominable Putridity

Perhaps the most important band in Brutal Death Metal at the moment. Hailing from Moscow, Russia (There's definitely some Trioxin in the water there too), in my opinion, these fiends fly the flag for BDM. They slam, they pulsate and they come at you with gnashing teeth and outstretched arms. There's a groove to their brutality, like that of modern hardcore metal, except instead of picking up change like a dull, aspiring tough-guy, they just sink their teeth right into you. It's the sound of the zombie apocalypse and it tastes really, really good.

Amputated

The embodiment of all that is brutal. These guys were, along with Abominable Putridity and Katalepsy, at the forefront of this new level of extremity called "Brutal Death Metal". Pig-squealing, check, assault rifle drumming, check, filth and absolutely depravity, check and check. They manage to stay true to the aesthetics of BDM without seeming like a parody or caricature. With some of the best audio bytes and the most rib-crunching riffs, Amputated are truly the skeleton of modern BDM and that skeleton, through forces of great evil, is animate and ready to chew on your skin. 

Friday night is going to be fucking messy.