Do you hate your brain? Not in the way where you’re a touch frustrated with that ol’ silly goose for making you forget your least favorite child at the bus stop again. I mean the type of hatred for that wrinkly blob that makes you wish you could separate motor function from it, allowing you to pull it out and mash it into a soupy goo with your bare hands before lobbing globs of it at the wall like a chimp throwing poo at the zoo.
- The cover art is an oddball floating brain that’s immediately as arresting as it is perplexing.
- The definition of the album title as it pertains to art is a creation that is too complicated in design or construction, which is basically telegraphing precisely what their mission statement is right off the bat.
- You could play this album at 10% speed and it will still take you 100 listens to gather what the hell is going on in a single song.
- Eventually, you’ll find yourself scrolling the tracklist only to discover there’s a song titled “Dolphin.”
Did you read that? It’s titled “Dolphin.” It will make you feel like a person who was just asked how another person could be dropped on their own head.
Fuck it, let’s start the song discussion portion of this review off with “Dolphin.” Should you skip straight to this track, you will be greeted with the auditory equivalent of hooking up a car battery to your nipples and gluing an endlessly pulsing set of electrodes to your temples. The guitars noodle and tap in such a frenzy that they’re almost vibrating up and down across the song. They dance like the song’s aquatic mammal namesake, doing aerial acrobatics amongst a hail of drumming gunfire. Does that make sense? Of course, it doesn’t; none of this does, and it’s all the better for it. The song also ends with one of the most br00000tal beatdowns of the entire record.
While the album produces more noodles than an Italian grandma who serves an 18-course meal anytime someone says they could use a snack, Overwrought is truly a showcase of Longstreth’s drumming prowess. He plays every type of blast beat that’s ever been heard of and some that may not exist yet. Shut up; it could be true. He leverages about ten different kinds of blast beats in “Culinary Cadaveric Art” alone, and I swear there’s a brief part in “Anencephalic Birth” where he plays one blast beat inside of another one. I don’t know how that’s possible. Maybe it’s not possible. I think this album broke me. Please send help.
Of particular note is that he manages to make the cymbals as vital to the songs as the barrage of snare and kick work. For example, look to the absolutely kickass moment where the cymbals are galloping while the rest of the drum parts are in full assault mode, and the guitars are firing off repeated shredding notes late in the runtime of “Abducted for Research.” There’s a nuance and flow to the madness of the drums throughout this album that is truly exceptional.
The title track was surely chosen for its on-the-nose implications stated above, but it also happens to be the most fiery track on the album. It’s difficult to say precisely how, but it’s just that extra bit more of an energetic and violent brand of tech-death compared to the songs before it. It feels like the band recorded everything else and then completely lost control of their bodies and loosed every ounce of insanity they had left. Neurectomy then had the giant stone cajones to end the album with “Crimson Tsunami,” which makes everything Brain Drill ever did feel like it was written by a tortoise. I know the tortoise beat the hare in a race, but could it beat a dolphin in one? FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT IS HOLY, WHY HAVE YOU NOT SENT HELP?!
For a good portion of folks reading this, we are heading into the holiday season. This time of year means putting up with more obnoxious people who are suffering finance-induced delirium in public spaces; trying to prepare oneself for the inanity of either the banalest or violently inappropriate conversations that always crop up with that one idiot of a relative we all have; and trying to avoid a heart attack brought on by the stress of balancing time off from work and getting shit done. Quite frankly, many of us could use a little help shutting our brains off just a bit more as we move into the year’s final weeks. Why not let Overwrought prod you with a little short-circuit for your own good?
