Band: Brutus
Album: Live In Ghent
VÖ: 23.10.2020
Label: Hassle Records / Membran
Website: http://www.wearebrutus.com/
Zum 15jährigen Jubiläum des großartigen Londoner Labels Hassle Records, das im Oktober mit einer ausgesuchten Reihe limitierter Vinyl-Neuauflagen (passender Weise 15 an der Zahl, unter anderem Juliette & The Licks, Casey, frnkiero andthe cellabration sind bereits angekündigt, weitere folgen) aufwarten wird, werden die großartigen Belgier BRUTUS mit „Live In Ghent“ (Hassle Records / Membran, VÖ 23.10.2020) ein druckvolles Dokument ihrer Live-Qualitäten veröffentlichen.
Das Trio um Drummerin/Sängerin Stefanie Mannaerts konnte sich über ihre Studioalben „Burst“ (2017) und „Nest“ (2019) weltweit in den Fokus (sowie zahlreiche internationale Bestenlisten) spielen. Touren mit u.a. DEFTONES, THRICE, CHELSEA WOLFE und Auftritte auf den wichtigsten Festivals quer über den Globus waren die unmittelbare Folge, binnen kürzester Zeit konnte die Band ihre ersten ausverkauften Clubshows auch bei uns in Deutschland verbuchen.
Gespannt warten wir auf alles, was von Stefanie Mannaerts, Peter Mulders und Stijn Vanhoegaerden noch kommt und freuen uns, Euch heute „Live in Ghent“ ans Herz zu dürfen, das in Kürze bemustert werden kann.
Das 12 Songs umfassende Live-Album überzeugt mit seiner atmosphärischen Dichte von der ersten bis zur letzten Sekunde und stellt die Klasse der Band noch einmal deutlich unter Beweis.
Weitere Infos:
With an album cover depicting Peters (Mulders, bass guitar) step-son, who wrote out their set-list on the night of the recorded show, 'Live In Ghent' goes some way to giving fans a taste of what they have missed in 2020 thanks to the ceasing of actual live shows.
The band explain a bit more - "When the real world went into lockdown, early March 2020, a year of live music disappeared before our eyes. Going on tour, playing festivals, watching bands, it’s all gone. It was as hard for us as it has been for everybody involved in live music. As a remedy, we took the time to look back on what we had already done and collected the footage we had of our previous shows. Painful and healing at the same time. That’s when we stumbled upon the recordings of our show at Handelsbeurs in Ghent, May 2019. A hometown show we fully recorded and filmed after a period of touring, in front of all our family and friends."
"We know it’s just a recording and not even close to the real feeling we had on stage or the energy we got back from the crowd in the room, but looking back, almost a year later, we feel absolutely proud about that show."
The band have actually played two live shows recently in Belgium, as a tentative return to concerts takes shape on mainland Europe. Recent shows: On July 17th they played the Rivierenhof in Antwerp, to 400 people (seated) in a 2000 people open air venue and on July 20th they played at Fort Napoleon in Ostend, to 100 people (seated), exclusive to band's mailing list fans.
BRUTUS: Live In Ghent
1. Fire
2. Cemetery
3. Horde II
4. Drive
5. War
6. Justice de Julia II
7. Child
8. Space
9. Techno
10. Distance
11. All Along
12. Sugar Dragon
BRUTUS are:
Stefanie Mannaerts - Drums, vocals
Peter Mulders - Bass
Stijn Vanhoegaerden - Guitar
Weitere Infos zur vorherigen VÖ:
Band: Brutus
Album: Nest
VÖ: 03.02.2019
Label: Hassle Records / Soulfood
Website: http://www.wearebrutus.com/
"From feeling invincible and grooving together through life to eventually losing all that you’ve built. The album NEST is a reflection of everything that came with making choices about ourselves and the ones in your nest."
Epic Belgian 3 piece BRUTUS can today announce details of their hugely anticipated forthcoming 2nd album 'Nest', set for release on March 29th through Hassle Records in Europe and through Sargent House in the ROTW. The record release is preceded by the first single/video 'War' which was shot on the last day of the recordings at Nest in Rain City Recorders, Vancouver Canada.
To describe the last two years as a whirlwind for BRUTUS is something of an understatement. Having signed to Hassle Records, 2017 saw the release of their debut album, Burst, which set them on a path of award nominations and ‘album of the year’ accolades, as well as picking up huge fans from Lars Ulrich of Metallica to Simon Neil of Biffy Clyro. In the last 12 or so months, they have toured with Sargent House label mates Chelsea Wolfe and Russian Circles, BRUTUS also hit the road as main support to Thrice through Europe. Taking time out from the live circuit, the trio headed to Vancouver to record their second album, once again returning to Jesse Gander (Japandroids, White Lung, Baptists) at his Rain City Recorders studio in September 2018. The resulting 11 tracks form BRUTUS’s new album, 'Nest'.
By their own admission, the formative sound of the band was shaped by their physical limitations; drummer Stefanie Mannaerts adopted vocal duties initially out of necessity. Having fully embraced her role as both vocalist and drummer, the full range of Stefanie’s multiple talents is showcased on 'Nest'. The abrasive urgency of her emotive vocals is mirrored in the tribalistic drumming, just as tender whispers echo the gentle roll of percussion elsewhere. Co-conspirators Stijn Vanhoegaerden (guitar) and Peter Mulders (bass) complete the magic circle with pervasive riffs, dynamic bass lines, and a fine balance between uneasy restraint and unrepentant aggression. BRUTUS throws a net over post-rock, hardcore, metal and pop, gathering defining facets of each into their unique sound.
A diverse mix of influences penetrated the BRUTUS bubble, the biggest of which was the people around them on the journey to the creation of 'Nest'. Be it the bands they toured with, their family at home, or indeed their own bandmates - human interaction is the nucleus of the album. However, additional sources of creative inspiration peppered their outlook; from Radiohead to Burial, from ‘Twin Peaks’ to Townes Van Zandt.
The path BRUTUS has taken has been meticulously mapped out on 'Nest'. All those glorious highs and euphoric moments are present - highlighted in magnificent technicolour no less. Burrowed in amongst those triumphs are moments of reflection; the choices they have made in pursuit of their goals and the impact those choices have had on both themselves and those they have left behind in their nest. The arc of the album charts the friction between the band’s forward motion and their desire to maintain a connection to those back at home. It’s a timeline of invincibility and doubt, of taking risks and letting go; a chronology of what they are and what they’ve done.
Bound by a thread that was intangible to others, their shared experiences, both good and bad; 'Nest' is the sound of a band who know how to use the strength of their bond to full effect, to use every part of themselves as an additional tool for conveying their message: take care of those in your own nest. BRUTUS find their places of comfort to be very different to the ones previously held dear; the nest they started out with is not quite the same one as they stand in today.
Infos zum vorherigen Album:
Band: Brutus
Album: Burst
VÖ: 03.02.2017
Label: Hassle Records / Soulfood
Website: www.brutusband.com
Stefanie Mannaerts - drums / vocals
Stijn Vanhoegaerden - guitar
Peter Mulders - bass
Brutus rage like a maelstrom. They are a meteor shower of sound. This trio from Leuven, Belgium create expansive, stratospheric punk quite unlike any other band around.
Here the searing, soaring guitars of shoegaze are amped up to hardcore punk speed, drums gallop like wild horses over open larval planes and drumming singer Stefanie Mannaerts offers some of the most impassioned vocals heard in recent times, capable of shifting from deceptively melodic to out-right larynx-punishing in the blink of an eye.
With post-rock construction, black metal dynamics, hardcore energy, prog and math-rock flourishes and pure pop melodies all detectible on their debut album Burst, Brutus manage to straddle the significant divide between Slayer and Savages, The Smiths and Slowdive, Dillinger Escape Plan and Deus - and all with just three members expertly colluding to make a sound as monolithic as it is emotive.
Bear witness to strident album opener ‘March’, a melodic blast of pure metallic energy that recalls the effervescent musical acrobatics of At The Drive-In full flight, or roaring lead single ‘All Along’, whose initial 4/4 beat belies an anthem that shows that Brutus write gargantuan songs too. Underground punk dudes they may be, but they have one eye on a world beyond the DIY scene that spawned them. Elsewhere ‘Looking For Love On Devil’s Mountain’ is thunderously melodic and closer ‘Child’ a thing of shimmering glacial beauty; part Mogwai-esque monumental musical work-out, part ethereal and elegiac (and ultimately frantic) punk rock epic.
Trouble comes in threes....and so do Brutus. They began life – and indeed met – playing a hardcore homage to Refused, regularly recreating the Swedish legends’ pivotal album The Shape Of Punk To Come in its entirety at tribute shows. Only when drummer Stefanie turned up to an audition to play a note-perfect version of the entire album, casually blowing away all-comers, did it become apparent that she was their secret weapon. “I’d heard about her around on the scene beforehand before I saw her play,” says bassist Peter Mulders . “Everyone told me I had to check this new female drummer who beat everyone else, hands down. And she did. Her talent is disarming. People just don’t expect it.”
When Refused did the unthinkable and reformed, it was time for Brutus to make their own shape of punk to come, which they did in early 2014. Friends for years, Stefanie and guitarist Stijn Vanhoegaerden had previously played together in Starfucker, while Peter had been in a teenage punk band. But Brutus offered a new beginning and whole new direction for a band formed without contrivance or fore-thought.
Finding a singer proved impossible, but working on a hunch that their multi- instrumentalist drummer was hiding a voice, Stijn and Peter conspired over several weeks and a good cop/bad cop routine to persuade Stefanie to take to the mic. The result was less a singer, and more an extra dynamic instrument to their sound – a vocalist who somehow recalls Cedric Bixler, Rachel Goswell, Geddy Lee, Perry Farrell and Brody Dalle, without directly sounding like any of them.
“Brutus was never about our shared influences, but instead three different personalities coming together and forming new friendships,” says Peter of their inception. “We’d don’t even necessarily like the same music. Stefanie loves black metal and likes playing blast-beats and Stijn loves The Smiths and Bruce Springsteen and played in a post-rock band, while I listen to anything from Kanye West through The Weeknd to NOFX. The way we each play our instruments may not work individually, and our tastes are often in conflict, but somehow it all comes together when the three of us are writing songs or step onto a stage.”
Throughout 2014-2015 Brutus did just that, playing over a hundred shows (including UK dates with similarly dynamic kindred spirits Raketkanon) and unleashed a triptych of killer singles: seven-inch only, two tracks each, all recorded over one energised weekend, then hand numbered, the DIY way. 333 copies. Sonically these early recordings recalled the layered texturing of My Bloody Valentine and the crushing black-hearted heaviness of Cult Of Luna, but with a rough-edged, gutter punk sensibility.
Also in 2015 with Record Store Day approaching and no gigs in place, Brutus instead launched their own Tattoo Store Day, where they hosted a raucous whiskey-fuelled day in a friend’s tattoo parlour where fans could buy their records and get inked at the same time. So if you’re wondering why people are wandering around Leuven, Antwerp, Ghent and Brussels with cryptic-looking logos on their biceps and forearms – that’s why. “What was just some accidental fun is now being taught on a local music college course as an example of excellent marketing,” laughs Peter.
In April 2016 Brutus decamped to Vancouver to record Burst, reasoning that because Flanders – the Dutch-speaking area of northern Belgium - is so small that any recordings done at home would surely be interrupted by hard-partying well-wishers gate-crashing the studio day and night.
It was a wise move. Burst is a 21st century rock album: challenging and exhilarating. Colossal. A cathedral-sized noise. A unique listening experience. Brutus are here.
Ben Myers.
October 2016.
