Apparently, brutal technical death metal is dissimilar from technical brutal death metal. The former takes the base genre, technical death metal, and adds the "brutal" factor through further abrasiveness and chunkier riffing. The latter takes the abrasiveness but ramps up the speed and instrumental prowess. To demonstrate this, hear the difference between Malignancy and Defeated Sanity. To the untrained ear, those two acts are sonically mutual. Turn those untrained ears this-a-way for an exemplification of brutal technical death metal; the newly-formed Subjugated. Their debut record will be some readers' control factor in this brutal-tech listening experiment.

Hailing from Spain, this quintet has already signed with Amputated Vein Records, a Bandcamp-centered label focusing on the radical gore-drenched groups of today. Instead of the label's aesthetic norm, ridiculously brutal album covers that'll surely reappear in your nightmares, Subjugated adopts one of ten million paintings depicting crucifixion and slaps their ever-so angular logo in the top left-hand side. Like the poor soul up on that cross, I'm also not too satisfied, which is strange; the record falls more under technically forward instead of brutally, mainly through the blistering instrumentation. Techdeath already provides busy listens, but Subjugated doesn't let up for a second. Edgar's double bass drums and their perpetual blast beats are relentlessly hurling themselves through your headphones and right out the nearest bodily orifice. His confrontational snare tone, especially in tracks like Beyond Noumenon or Homo Homini Lupus, is satisfying at first, but annoying once abused. The dual guitars further technicalize the album, and some riffs are actually quite memorable. Shroud of Thorns hosts the grooviest and most creative of the bunch. The gild of technicality sadly ends there. Under the fine gold lining, brutal death metal awaits...

...and that's my source of dissatisfaction. I mentioned that some, and keyword some, of the riffs are fine, but the rest are basic plodding slams that, while heavy, aren't original or discernible. This album would've been one hell of a trendsetter in the early 90's, but ever since Internal Bleeding's demo, at least a thousand other bands have been slamming identically to each other, Subjugation as no exception. A sliver of Oskar's bass couldn't hurt in these monotonous segments, but, of course, it's nowhere to be found. The other reason is the vocals, and I know this is a common metal criticism, but I promise I don't dislike heavier genres because of their gutturals. Igor's gurgles are overproduced to smithereens; almost deathcore-like. Hollow, if you will. They glitch (Equity & Retaliation), they BREE (pick a song, any song), but never do they impress me. I say throw in an unnecessary The Matrix sample as an introductory skit and call it good, guys. Inherent Belligerence isn't great.

Subjugated is still a young band with plenty of time to discover a style all to their own. If you can tell me why, in two to three complete sentences, the difference between brutal techdeath and tech brutdeath, and which genre this record falls under, then I'll give it some credit for at least being educational.