Style: Blackened Death/Thrash (Harsh vocals, with some yell-ish cleans)
Review by: Chris
Country: Norway
Release date: 01-08-2020
At some point I believe I became the blackened death guy around here, which is no issue since I like a lot of bands in the sphere. However, the more I’ve been diving into it the more I’ve been realizing it has got a lot of competing bands cluttering up the space, which makes it hard for some to stand out. So the question for me whenever I get another is whether it stands out or tremolo picks itself into the background with the others.
The lineup structure of Brotthogg was the first thing I puzzled over when I looked at the bandcamp, as seeing “All Guitar Solos” as a credit is kind of funny. Aside from wondering how this would be performed live, I would first say Brotthogg’s inclusion of some thrashier elements into their riff writing definitely give them a bit of a unique flair compared to their relatives in the blackened area of things. The addition of symphonic elements of times give great nods to their self proclaimed influence from Emperor, and at times in songs such as “Liberation” you will find yourself slightly leaning into a more technical death land a la Revocation.
As I’ve mentioned in some other reviews I’ve done, single person songwriting tends to either be too samey and suffer from single voicing (if said person doesn’t have a wide voice to themselves in writing) or it can benefit from unified sound and phrasing when the creator has a natural wide swathe of stylistic choices available to them. Brotthogg falls much more into the second category with a good amount of variety in this album, though always keeping the air the same in the album in order to help tie things together. In terms of the “all guitar solos” performance, I would say they are all in the realm of good to great, with a few being surprisingly melodic for the blackened stylings of the songs they exist in. The vocals are pretty well delivered from both vocalists (though I can’t really tell which is doing which, so I’m blanketing both vocalists in that statement).
My favorite moments I will admit are those where it strays close to the technical chordy style of things that most evoke Revocation, and my recommended tracks reflect that preference. I just found that mixing and the mixing of the thrashier riffs more interesting than when the album stuck on the blackened sound explicitly for a whole song. Brotthogg have some cool stuff going on here and is well worth a checkout, I just don’t know that it has really changed anything. But it isn’t regressing or derivative completely, so that. in my book is always a big plus.
Recommended tracks: Behind the Gateways, Liberation, Iacta Alea Est
Recommended for fans of: Revocation, Emperor, Behemoth
Final verdict: 7/10
Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | Facebook | Instagram | Metal-Archives page
Label: Independent
Brotthogg is:
– Kristian Larsen Moen (all instruments)
– Jonas Moen (vocals)
– Craig Furunes (vocals)
– Stephen Carlson (all guitar solos)
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