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There’s no denying the distinctive nature of Brazilian death metal, its debt to the pioneering Sepultura and, in recent times, the singularly brutal Krisiun.
But despite their clumsy moniker, Burn The Mankind have managed to create a sound that takes those influences and turns them into something subtly original and gloriously intense.
This is dark, dissonant and ruthless stuff, driven by a murderous bullet storm of double kicks and underpinned by a churning, Immolation-esque swamp of hellish riffing. Moments of stately grandiloquence – the haunting Vacuum – point to a devotion to the Morbid Angel school of unholy domination, but there are flashes of gothic doom (Everyone Is Blind), flurries of blackened discord (Lies) and bursts of pummelling, atonal grind (To Beyond): the sum of those parts is both thrillingly unpredictable and wickedly compelling.
In addition to the rare joy of hearing a young death metal band that truly grasp what makes the genre great, To Beyond proves that Brazil’s love affair with underground extremity has spawned a terrifying new monster.
