{"id":106206,"date":"2026-08-07T00:00:53","date_gmt":"2026-08-06T23:00:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/?p=106206"},"modified":"2026-08-28T11:18:00","modified_gmt":"2026-08-28T10:18:00","slug":"album-review-brainbath-headhunted","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/album-review-brainbath-headhunted\/","title":{"rendered":"BRAINBATH – HeadHunted (2026) | Album \/ EP Reviews @ Metal Forces Magazine"},"content":{"rendered":"

BRAINBATH
\nHeadHunted<\/strong><\/span>
\n\"\"
\nMacho \/ Memento Mori (2026)<\/span>
\nRating: 7.5\/10<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

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I\u2019ve been looking forward to this full-length debut since these Scottish death metal ghouls unleashed their self-titled<\/a> EP four years ago. BrainBath have become a strong and vital ingredient in championing the Scottish death metal scene, and I\u2019ve no doubt that HeadHunted<\/em> will bolster their reputation. However, in preparation for a lynching, I\u2019ll get the negatives out of the way first. I don\u2019t like the album cover (too generic) and literally every song is too long.<\/p>\n

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\u2019m guessing that\u2019s why the cover art has been designed in such a fashion. The platter is still a bludgeoning experience as \u2018HeadHunted\u2019 comes littered with maniacal howls and demonic laughter. There\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

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\u2019s 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 \u2018Brained\u2019, the crushing \u2018Terror Has No Shape\u2019 and the ploughing grind of \u2018Gateways To Oblivion\u2019. Again though, these could all have been much shorter in duration, but the die-hard BrainBath disciples will be lapping this up.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t hear much of the swampy Impetigo or Autopsy influence mentioned in some of the promotional details though. Even with its fury there\u2019s 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\u2019s 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 \u2018Exhumed & Ingested\u2019 churns with an arrogant belligerence, foaming with every grind of its heated cogs and pistons.<\/p>\n

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\u2019s mainly to say that the U.S. death metal vibe is prominent. \u2018Plague Of Flies\u2019, particularly with the percussion, gives the brain a hammering as the axe work of Barrett and Kendo rush like scalding volcanic magma. \u2018Plague Of Flies\u2019 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. \u2018Kemper (Skull)\u2019 gnashes like one of those war torn Bolt Thrower tunes, and as Kwondo barks up further troll-like burps on closer \u2018Desensitised To Dismemberment\u2019, I\u2019m once again thrown into that mid-to-late 90s cauldron of seething, unapologetic churning.<\/p>\n

This most certainly isn\u2019t the most atmospheric, technical or thrill-per-minute death metal opus you\u2019ll hear, but it does feel as though that by setting their stall up as a more meat \u2018n\u2019 potatoes 90s style annihilation machine, the Glasgow-based band are aiming towards a larger audience. Nowhere as \u201cindie\u201d or as goofy as the previous EP, HeadHunted<\/em> remains a heavyweight composition from a band that\u2019s clearly hungry for exposure as well as flesh.<\/p>\n

As I write this I\u2019m on my 11th listen and I\u2019m still traipsing through these unrelenting streams of boiling liquid. There\u2019s no denying the serious and forceful nature of this creation that provides the ideal soundtrack to being torched by a flamethrower, but it\u2019s not an assault I\u2019ll require on a regular basis. HeadHunted<\/em> 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.<\/p>\n

Neil Arnold<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BRAINBATH HeadHunted Macho \/ Memento Mori (2026) Rating: 7.5\/10 I\u2019ve 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\u2019ve no doubt that HeadHunted will bolster their reputation. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,4805],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-106206","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-album-ep-reviews","category-brainbath"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106206","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=106206"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106206\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":106208,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106206\/revisions\/106208"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=106206"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=106206"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=106206"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}