Brutal Sphincter has not matured with its new album.
Entitled Sphinct-Earth Society, it took seven years of preparation by Eerik “Corde Sensible” Maurage (guitar, Xaon), Germain “Spermain” Bodeus (bass, ex-Klysma), Jimmy “Major Diarrhea” Defays (vocals), Griska “GG Stalin” Lutgen (vocals) and Julien Racine (drums, Xaon), who are collaborating for the first time with Time to Kill Records.
With a name like that – whether it’s the band or the album – you’ve got to expect something really heavy, but above all you’ve got to pause your brain to savor the musicians’ genius. Whether The Prolapse Of Society, the opening track, already sounds as groovy as clever, wait until you hear the vocal parts of Tony Hawk’s Pro-Choice 2022, which remain within the Brutal Death/Grind spectrum and are the perfect accompaniment to the catchy patterns. The track seems clearly cut out for live performance, as does Crusta-Colada (Crack’n Kofola), which boasts numerous moshparts conducive to crowd movements of all kinds, and doesn’t shy away from lining them up with that little downtime beforehand. We continue with Unvaxxed Lives Matter and its simple but effective riffs that allow the vocalists to scream over a bouncy rhythm, while Beatdown Syndrome – as its name absolutely does not indicate – will place spikes of technicality all over the place between the massive passages that also incite you to fuck off. Name Three Songs will irritate your eardrums with a disturbing instrumental before crushing you, then it’s with the eponymous Sphinct-Earth Society that the band sets about frantically shaking your skull. The drums provide the lively Grindcore touch, while musicians and vocalists respond to each other on this joyful basis, before returning on The Juice Did It, which charges forward at full speed and will be one of the band’s best assets for launching a wall of death. In addition to the magnificent wordplay, Persona Non-Greta offers us some simple but still solid riffs to accommodate the various vociferations before letting Abolish Frontex close the album with the same delicacy as on the previous tracks, benefiting from some rather groovy passages and furious guitar.
If you ever doubted the seriousness of Brutal Sphincter, you’ll be punished by their puns for life! While not the smartest album of the year (or even the decade), Sphinct-Earth Society holds its own and is ready to deliver its slaps!
80/100