When a solo creator enlists a stellar group of other performers to help realize his vision, there’s a risk that the creator will be overshadowed. In the case of the death metal project Visceral, the centerpiece is Portuguese musician and vocalist Bruno K. He’s no newcomer, as a glance at Metal-Archives proves, having been a member of the death/grind band Bowelrot, who released four demos and a split in the early ’90s, as well as other projects from that era and more recently the black/death bands Enlighten and In Tha Umbra.
So, he has some history, and no doubt it is his musical conception and songcraft that gives Visceral its true lifeforce. But as mentioned, he also recruited some very talented allies for the recording of Visceral‘s forthcoming debut album The Tree of Venomous Fruit, including drummer Menthor Serpens from Enthroned, Lucifyre, and Nightbringer (among others), bassist Alexandre Ribeiro from Grog and Earth Electric, and vocalist Guilherme Henriques from Gaerea and Oak.
What they have all accomplished together is a very impressive 11-song record that draws from old school death metal traditions but goes beyond those, and we have a prime example of that in the album track we’re premiering today through a guitar-playthrough video, one that’s aptly named “Toxin“.
Bruno tells us: “’Toxin‘ was the first song I wrote for Visceral, and although I already had lots of riffs and ideas in my mind for most of the songs, I intended it to be the opening track for the album. My inspiration for the last section of the song came from stuff like early Autopsy or Entombed’s Left Hand Path.”
The song strikes with a massive and mauling sound, with acetylene-torch riffing that generates a dense storm of assaulting and incinerating abrasion. It somehow sounds both maniacal and coldly murderous, and it’s driven to further heights of catastrophic frenzy through the assault of turbocharged percussive weaponry, thunderous bass eruptions, writhing guitar leads, gargantuan roars, and thoroughly terrorizing howls.
The combined effect of all that is nothing short of cataclysmic, even when the racing drums slow into explosive detonations and the lead guitar becomes a ringing voice of eerie agony at the end.
In a nutshell, “Toxin” is a ruthlessly punishing and unnerving piece of music, and thoroughly exhilarating through and through. And fittingly, it’s Bruno K.’s own savage artistry that takes center stage in the video.
About the album as a whole, we’ll also share these words from Bruno:
“Talking about Visceral, I have to talk about myself really, because this is, to some extent, a very personal project.
“These last twelve months have been like a rebirth for me. I got a chance to invest quite some time on myself, time that hasn’t been available in a long time. Some things changed, but some things merely ripen, and I had the opportunity to rediscover myself – regarding my health, both physical and mental – but also as an artist.
“For the people who know me or my music since the beginning, some will notice that are some resemblances between the Bowelrot logo and the Visceral logo. That has a purpose and a meaning: completing a circle, more than the start of new one.
“I naturally found the right persons to accompany me on this journey, and there was no great need to do much explaining or provide guidelines, because I know them well, and when I invited them to take part in Visceral, I didn’t want to cripple their artistic creativity in any way. I even altered some things influenced by their input, because we are not only friends – the respect and admiration for one another goes across their professionalism as musicians, because all of them and their skills are at the top of the game of extreme music.”
The Tree of Venomous Fruit is set for release by Raging Planet Records on November 18th. For more info about the album and when it becomes available for pre-order, keep an eye on the locations linked below.
And last but not least we’re also including two other selections of music from the album, the artwork time-lapse video for “Fever Fruit” and the lyric video for “Upborne with Indefatigable Wings“, which features a guitar solo by Bob Sreijens (Fungus, Prostitute Disfigurement).
RAGING PLANET:
https://ragingplanet.bandcamp.com/
https://www.facebook.com/ragingplanet
VISCERAL:
https://linktr.ee/visceraldeathmetal