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BRAINBATH
HeadHunted

Macho / Memento Mori (2026)
Rating: 7.5/10

I’ve been looking forward to this full-length debut since these Scottish death metal ghouls unleashed their self-titled EP four years ago. BrainBath have become a strong and vital ingredient in championing the Scottish death metal scene, and I’ve no doubt that HeadHunted will bolster their reputation. However, in preparation for a lynching, I’ll get the negatives out of the way first. I don’t like the album cover (too generic) and literally every song is too long.

Anyway, eight brutal tracks are delivered like meat hooks to the brain as the combo unleashes the six plus minute title track. Immediately I hear a 90s vibe, and I’m guessing that’s why the cover art has been designed in such a fashion. The platter is still a bludgeoning experience as ‘HeadHunted’ comes littered with maniacal howls and demonic laughter. There’s a lot of accessible melody present, which surprised me as maybe I was anticipating something more dank and dismal. Even so, this is clearly a band maturing and taking on a multitude of influences, particularly from the U.S. scene as the likes of Morbid Angel, Cannibal Corpse, Malevolent Creation, Deicide and, on the UK front, Benediction can be heard in smatterings across the board, especially on the more brutal moments.

Vocalist Warmaster Kwondo provides a furnace of a vocal display, exhaling evil rushes to accompany the potent blasts of percussion and riffage. As I said, the album serves up eight tracks and some serious fat could have been trimmed off each one, but there’s still a nice balance of burly aggression and mid-tempo. In other words, there is variety within the overlong durations, particularly on my favourite chunks which are ‘Brained’, the crushing ‘Terror Has No Shape’ and the ploughing grind of ‘Gateways To Oblivion’. Again though, these could all have been much shorter in duration, but the die-hard BrainBath disciples will be lapping this up.

I don’t hear much of the swampy Impetigo or Autopsy influence mentioned in some of the promotional details though. Even with its fury there’s a cleanliness here, the production is both fiery yet precise resulting in a scorching clarity very reminiscent of a mid-to-late 90s death metal feel. It’s not a criticism, BrainBath have actually gone against the grain of the current crop of swamp ghouls doing the rounds. Every track rolls on like a bulldozer, leaving a trail of flattened corpses as ‘Exhumed & Ingested’ churns with an arrogant belligerence, foaming with every grind of its heated cogs and pistons.

The lively Blooter is a bestial force on the kit, his skins take a hell of a beating and work in sinister cohorts with the pulverising bass of Killcrusher. Strangely, at times a more primitive Nocturnus springs to mind although bereft of the unorthodox technicality, but it’s mainly to say that the U.S. death metal vibe is prominent. ‘Plague Of Flies’, particularly with the percussion, gives the brain a hammering as the axe work of Barrett and Kendo rush like scalding volcanic magma. ‘Plague Of Flies’ is arguably the most intense experience on offer even with the piercing melancholic solo, but the fierce structuring is akin to driving 100mph into a red hot wall of black ice. ‘Kemper (Skull)’ gnashes like one of those war torn Bolt Thrower tunes, and as Kwondo barks up further troll-like burps on closer ‘Desensitised To Dismemberment’, I’m once again thrown into that mid-to-late 90s cauldron of seething, unapologetic churning.

This most certainly isn’t the most atmospheric, technical or thrill-per-minute death metal opus you’ll hear, but it does feel as though that by setting their stall up as a more meat ‘n’ potatoes 90s style annihilation machine, the Glasgow-based band are aiming towards a larger audience. Nowhere as “indie” or as goofy as the previous EP, HeadHunted remains a heavyweight composition from a band that’s clearly hungry for exposure as well as flesh.

As I write this I’m on my 11th listen and I’m still traipsing through these unrelenting streams of boiling liquid. There’s no denying the serious and forceful nature of this creation that provides the ideal soundtrack to being torched by a flamethrower, but it’s not an assault I’ll require on a regular basis. HeadHunted will scalp its audience with one swoop of a mighty riff and I take my hat off to the guys for composing such a straight faced demonic drubbing.

Neil Arnold

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