Some brief thoughts on Brutality and Monstrosity: twin gems from the Floridian underground

When a genre becomes as crowded as metal, the need for rigorous selection inevitably arises as a necessary mechanism to unearth the truly outstanding voices, and in that process certain works are crowned as achievements of reference to be taken into account by all fans and musicians looking to contribute to the style with their own creations. Although Florida’s Brutality and Monstrosity could both be considered relatively well sung by many standards, they may not exactly enjoy the status we’ve just described if we go by the attention and praise they’ve garnered along the years in the underground metal community. This compels us to leave some observations on these bands since, in our view, two of their works vigorously display the power of cohesive songwriting in death metal; we are referring to Brutality’s “Screams of Anguish” and Monstrosity’s “Millennium”.

Starting with the first, the band’s compositional approach could be likened to an elastic: for each bit of pressure applied to a certain point, an equally intense motion infallibly arises in the contrary direction, with all of the dynamics contributing to the overall kinetic equilibrium. This makes each section meaningful, because none of them is inconsequential to the structure of the song, revealing how all parts are interconnected and each passage is an organic reaction to the one that precedes it. For each slower part, a faster one will rise in compensation, and every mood will be similarly contrasted. This makes for an incredibly cohesive listening experience, complemented by leads that push the songs further into specific tendencies hinted by the riffs, instead of aimlessly wandering off to unrelated tangents. This degree of coherence and control is rare even for this type of music. In addition, the riffs are imbued with a genuinely tragic and melancholic quality which, aided by a surprisingly accomplished melodic sensibility, elevates much of this music to epic heights not that common or expected for this sort of death metal.  

Monstrosity also achieve remarkable coherence in their sound through different means. On much of their second full length album, “Millennium”, the band moves the music forward by slight but impactful changes in the core riffs, almost as if trying to exhaust all of the possible pathways that a certain melodic pattern offers. Monstrosity don’t build their riff dialogue through contrast or shock, like many metal bands do by taking advantage of chromaticism, but rather opt for an approach that allows them to squeeze the maximum potential of each idea, successively unfolding it in several directions according to the needs of the song. This becomes particularly evident in tracks like “Dream Messiah”, where a single palm-muted riff goes through several mutations and tempo changes that considerably enrichen it through the course of the song, like a bloodstream where new nutrients are consecutively injected. The main impression on the listener is that of all of the music being weaved from the same prime matter, granting it a particularly powerful flow. This is analogous to the effect that, in classical music, is often attributed to Brahms’ 4th Symphony.

These two somewhat underappreciated examples of death metal from the Floridian scene ingeniously showcase potential methods for crafting highly expressive music with a strong sense of cohesion that radically elevates the experience and immediately distinguishes it from the output of most bands. If thoroughly studied, these albums offer a myriad of techniques and insights that are still useful for aspiring musicians and bands in this genre.