Review by JD on April 20, 2012.

It makes me angry as hell when people look upon metal as something that has no real discernable intelligence to it, and just is mindless and vulgar noise bent on destroying everything. It is true that we do have lyrics like that, but metal is much more than that -we dare to look at the world, and tell it like it is. We may not be like our irritating little brother Hardcore Punk, we can actually articulate what we are needing to say with class and great music as well. Brazil’s Drowned is one of those bands that can do that.

Combining the fury, explosiveness and dynamics of Death Metal with equal parts of Thrash, Speed and shades of Punk into the fold- Drowned brings intelligence to the brutality and kicks your ass with it. With massive riffs overtop of venomous vocals, this band brings a new aggression and fight - think as if this is Death or Sepultura with the intelligence of System Of A Down with Thrash tendencies.

Songs like the deathly Thrashing of 'Before You Try To Kill Me' or the more traditional Death Metal side of things represented by the nasty 'Universal Killing Portion' shows a band that can walk that so small of a tightrope between delivering full out Death Metal blast and some maniacal yet musically awe inspiring Thrash. The results is a album that is begging to be on everyone’s top ten lists at the end of this year.

Gotta say that Drowned’s "Belligerent - Part Two: Death And Greed Are United" was the style that Brazil’s metallic masters Sepultura should have done rather than going with the whole tribal beats things that had started with "Roots Bloody Roots". They lost me on that album, and continued to on all future ones as well. Drowned has picked up the torch, and has deposed Sepultura as Brazil’s best band. Sorry guys... this band is that damned fuckin’ good.

Categorical Rating Breakdown

Musicianship: 10
Atmosphere: 10
Production: 9.5
Originality:9.5
Overall: 9.5

Rating: 9.7 out of 10