Labels: self released
Review by: Alex Deller
That I’m going to check out a band called ‘Brain Stem’ with that kind of logo and that kind of album art is pretty much a given, but rather than some science fiction-imbued grotesquery I’m presented instead with some death metal that lingers on the stodgy side. Things lumber, crunch and groove in amenable fashion, chuntering merrily away and throwing in the occasional dissonant jag to spice up proceedings. Meshuggah, Cephalic Carnage and Coalesce variously spring to mind – a fine enough set of references to be sure, but in a galaxy inhabited by the likes of Gorguts, Blood Incantation and Cryptic Shift this lot need to put quite a bit of legwork in if they really want to make a mark on the weirder, wilder side of the genre.