Louisiana metal powerhouse, BRAT, will release its new LP, ‘Manslayer‘, on September 25 via Prosthetic Records. BRAT’s eagerly awaited sophomore album, ‘Manslayer’, was tracked at Chicago’s Bricktop Recording, produced, engineered, and mixed by Weekend Nachos’ Andy Nelson, and mastered by Brad Boatright (Deadguy, Pig Destroyer, Lathe of Heaven) with maximum weight and minimum mercy. The follow-up to BRAT’s 2024 debut, ‘Social Grace’, ‘Manslayer’ features 17 tracks of primitive death metal, garroting thrash, and swamp-drenched hardcore for devotees of the darkest reaches of the underground.
Ironically for such a violently heavy band as BRAT, a lyrical influence that helped shaped ‘Manslayer’ was country music. More specifically, BRAT vocalist Liz Selfish gleaned inspiration from its songs about women’s revenge, in which they took their power back and left the lifeless bodies of the men who wronged them in their wake. Take “Goodbye Earl” by The Chicks, “Before He Cheats” by Carrie Underwood, or “Gunpowder & Lead” by Miranda Lambert. They were metal as hell without even trying to be. Shock-inducing album artwork by Wes Benscoter (Mortician, Slayer), hammers home Manslayer’s macabre motif.
The first warning shot in BRAT’s counterblow brigade is the new single, “Manslayer (Hell Hath No Fury)” and its accompanying music video, directed by John Colgan.
“There’s not a lot of those tropes in death metal,” Selfish says by way of contrast, “which I think primarily is because there’s not a lot of women in that space. I thought that was a really cool perspective and I really liked the storytelling aspect of it.” In extreme music, it’s far too often been the other way around, where women end up as the corpses, not the ones holding the knives. This seed of an idea was the ideal means for BRAT to add extra dimensions to its sound, which coincided with Liz stepping up to write lyrics for the first time after guitarist and co-founder Brenner Moate had taken the reins on the group’s debut.
“It’s quite new territory for me, and it wasn’t necessarily an intentional thing initially,” Liz says. “I wrote the first song for the album, and I just loved writing, and I was like, ‘I really love doing this, and I want to do more, so I ended up writing the whole album. Brenner’s main focus is writing music – he wants to write riffs – so he wasn’t too torn up about not writing the lyrics. It was a nice passing of the torch.”
Track listing:
1.) Intro
2.) Aileen Wuornos
3.) Speculum Bleed
4.) Bone Spurs
5.) Botch Tox
6.) Media Slop
7.) Trophy Hunting
8.) Asking for Hell
9.) Heretic Burning
10.) Interlude
11.) Manslayer (Hell Hath No Fury)
12.) Bloody Mary
13.) Femicidal Vengeance (feat. David Davidson of Revocation)
14.) Spit on His Grave
15.) Ways to Kill Your Husband
16.) Blistered Tongues (feat. Candace Buckingham of Walls of Jericho)
17.) Outro
Above all, ‘Manslayer’ represents a scaling up of ambition, sound, and vision for BRAT. The concepts are bigger, the music more widescreen, and it is all bound to translate into absolute mayhem live. For a full listing of upcoming BRAT tour dates, click here.
“We’re evolving the bimboviolence and the campiness by making it all a little bit darker with this album, and a bit more overtly violent,” says Liz. “I think that will probably reflect in our stage show and our imagery as well, keeping it fun, not a total 180, but definitely progressing into something darker with it.”
In addition to Liz Selfish and Brenner Moate, BRAT features Dustin Eagan (drums), and Ian Hennessey (bass).