Album Review: Brotality – The Woods Will End You (Rottweiler Records)

The Woods Will End You is the second full length album from New York’s progressive thrash band Brotality, following in the wake of ‘21s Worldwide Desolation. It will be released on June 3rd, 2022.

If you’re not head over heels with Brotality from the moment the instrumental genius of Wild kicks this album off in style, clean your ears out. It might be short (1:29) and it might be just an intro, but it is downright amazing.

Chances are a smile will be plastered over your face as things get heavier, nastier, and nosier. Brotality beginning to unleash progressive grandness with punchy thrash aggression and no-nonsense heavy metal head-banging on First Empire and Nosedive. Before a break in proceedings comes with the melodic and folksy burn of Midnight Fire.

Flesheater of the Forest brings back the intensity, the riffs choppy and rhythmic, the different vocal styles complimenting each other and the heft of the drums adding weight and substance to a frenetic listen. That’s then followed the cleaner, progressive, wandering, and dark behemoth that is An Evil Presence.

A truly staggering track on a truly staggering album, yet there is more still to come as Skull Rot explodes with thrashy intensity before immediately taking a step back to be a more measured, groove-infused head-banger. The more aggressive vocal style working like an exclamation point, this is a track that shifts quite abruptly in the latter stages for even more enjoyment.

Sunseeker is another of the short, melodic instrumental offerings, this one with a post-ring to it and exploding into epic guitar territory at the end. These tracks are easy to love as they break up the album but don’t affect the flow.

Finally, the latter part of the album sees Brotality delivering massive, detailed and captivating head-bangers in the form of Sludgehammer and The Moon Below. The latter in particular, going over 11 minutes and lifting the bar for progressive metal to insurmountable heights. Brotality may never be able to top something so extravagant, complex and listenable.

Which is why the finale of Glow is a bit more straight-forward, albeit as straight-forward as Brotality can possible get. It’s still littered with all their trademark noisy sounds but interestingly, has a touch of the punk-rocks about it. A real treat to wrap this album up with.

Brotality – The Woods Will End You Full Track Listing:

1. Wild
2. Frost Empire
3. Nosedive
4. Midnight Fire
5. Flesheater of the Forest
6. An Evil Presence
7. Skull Rot
8. Sunseeker
9. Sludgehammer
10. The Moon Below
11. Glow

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