Brat - Social Grace (2024) (English review)

 

Taking advantage of the announcement of the Napalm Death and Crowbar tour, which includes a date in Barcelona on February 26, 2025, we are going to analyze one of the opening acts for it.

Brat come from New Orleans and, always according to them, practice a musical style called "bimboviolence." It doesn't seem very clear what they are trying to imply with this description, but what we can say about "Social Grace" is that the ten songs included in it are a deep and direct song, always to the point. It's not that grindcore, death metal or power violence predominate, but that all of them form a resource that Brat use interchangeably, whatever the track.

 

 

Despite the album's barely 20-minute duration, it cannot be said that we are facing a typical grindcore album, where the songs pass without any pain or glory amidst fiery guitars and bellowing. Here each moment has its reason for being, and together they complete a puzzle with coherence and meaning. The reason for this is, for example, "Human Offense" and "Social Grace", with a lot of groove and rhythm changes, or "Rope Drag", with a very intense riff that makes us think of thrash metal and death. heavier.

However, of course there is also time for the most basic characteristics of grind, which we can hear in songs like the initials "Ego Death" and "Hesitation Wound".

Although we can conclude that the most positive part of the album is the band's little desire to repeat itself, we must also indicate that they need to take their proposal towards fresher and more original terrain, where they put their personality before sounding one way or another. In general, something totally normal for their debut, and one that they will surely polish with tours and subsequent recordings in the future.