Put down your brains, Becerus is back.
In 2024, Mario Musumeci (vocals, ex-Balatonizer), Giorgio Trombino (guitar/bass, Assumption, Bottomless, ex-Haemophagus, ex-Morbo…) and Paul Bicipitus (drums) continue their collaboration with Everlasting Spew Records for the release of their second album, entitled Troglodyte.
On Troglodyte, we have the same concept as on the first album: no lyrics but bestial screams, and a Neanderthal creature created by Dahmer Art (Brutal Sphincter, Exhumed, Gutalax, Scaphism…) that perfectly illustrates what this album is all about: real carnage. Apart from the introduction, cleverly subtitled Rise Of The Energumens, which is a kind of mysterious sample, each of the twelve compositions, whose names are as subtle as the riffs that make them up, is pure violence. The borborygms perfectly fit in the band’s base of thick brutal Old School Death Metal, and the tracks follow one another without pause, or almost without pause: barely a few seconds of introductions and the band resume their ferocious assault, very often at a fairly high tempo and with an atmosphere conducive to blast and double pedal. A few complex solos slip in here and there, as on Aggressive Illiterate or the eponymous Troglodyte, but they too remain ultra-fast and scathing, in keeping with the devastation the band seems to have set itself. Mario‘s vocal delivery is also remarkable, capable of taking on frantic, continuous parts, as on Progressive Mental Retardation – which is one of the shortest tracks, but also one of the most effective – or Serpicus Ebbeth Macagno, where at times he barely has time to breathe.
It may sound like a joke, but Becerus‘ Death Metal is of the highest quality, rooted in a brutal old-school sound. Troglodyte has its moments of stupid, nasty violence, of course, but the musicians’ technical skills are equally impressive!
90/100
