Reviews list for Mutilator - Immortal Force (1987)

The city of Belo Horizonte may not be Brazil’s most populous city. In fact, it’s only its sixth. But if you trace back the origins of extreme metal in South America, it may just be the most important for a couple of reasons. The first of which would be the birth of Brazil’s two biggest extreme metal exports in Sepultura & Sarcofago in 1984 with Sepultura destined for global domination during the 1990’s & Sarcofago becoming an important influence on the early black metal story. The second key achievement for Belo Horizonte was the formation of Cogumelo Records in 1985; a label that would play a pivotal role in the development of the Brazilian metal scene. 1985 would see Cogumelo releasing Brazil’s very first death/thrash release in Sepultura & Overdose’s split album before following it up with the highly regarded “Warfare Noise” compilation & Sepultura’s debut full-length “Morbid Visions” in 1986. These releases may have sounded primitive from an international perspective however they would open up a world of exciting possibilities for young Belo Horizonte metalheads, resulting in a handful of fresh new bands who would consistently challenge each other in terms of raw extremity & would each have an avenue for getting their music released via Cogumelo. Bands like Holocausto & Exterminator would follow the path that Sarcofago had paved by pushing out into your more evil death & black metal territory while Chakal & Mutilator would go down the thrash metal route of Sepultura who were themselves taking further strides to validate the creative importance of the region by producing South America’s first genuinely classic record in 1987’s “Schizophrenia” album.  

Mutilator would begin life as a five-piece known as Desaster in 1985; presumably taking their moniker from the misspelt title of an early Destruction track called “Total Desaster” from the previous year. The decision to go move forward with an alternate name would be triggered by a lineup change that saw Sepultura roadie Silvio SDN joining the band for a short-lived stint behind the microphone which spawned two demo tapes in 1986. Following Silvio’s departure, we’d see existing guitarist Kleber picking up the vocal duties in a new four-piece arrangement which would see Mutilator through to their debut album “Immortal Force” in 1987. It’s interesting that lead guitarist Alexander Magoo would be offered the lead guitar role in Sepultura around that time but he turned them down in order to concentrate on Mutilator with Andreas Kisser scoring himself the gig for the recording of “Schizophrenia”. Oooooooooo…. that’s gotta hurt, doesn’t it? 

The album cover for “Immortal Force” is somewhat of a missed opportunity as it just looks like a cheap demo where the band didn’t bother or couldn’t afford to source a decent image. The latter is actually the truth as Cogumelo weren’t exactly raking it in & the result is essentially just Mutilator’s logo with the album title printed on a black background. You’ve gotta wonder whether this has contributed to the band’s profile staying a little more underground than was perhaps warranted from a musical perspective. I’d guess so because it’s quite rare to see them mentioned anywhere these days & that’s a shame really. A nasty image like we saw on the Chakal debut or the early Sepultura records could have been just what the doctor ordered but sadly it wasn’t to be. At least they didn’t have to deal with the Nazi symbolism that marred the Exterminator & Holocausto debuts I guess. 

Possibly a bigger concern is the quality of the production though as “Immortal Force” has definitely had its potential stunted in this regard. I don’t believe Cogumelo could afford a producer & it shows very obviously with a disappointing & restrictive mix that would be one of the major talking points of the album. The most serious flaw is the terribly thin rhythm guitar sound which fails to give some pretty high quality thrash riffage the foundation it deserves. Those guitars were also destined to be positioned much too far back in the mix & their tone & volume varies between tracks. The booming drums have received the opposite treatment though which seems to be a bit of a local signature. That snare drum is absolutely massive & it leaves the poor guitarists struggling for impact most of the time. These sort of sound quality issues were nothing new for the Brazilian metal scene & fans have learnt to love the primitive nature of these youthful efforts but I can’t help but feel sorry for Mutilator here as they had a lot more to offer than this mess. Thankfully, I can overlook it pretty comfortably given that my ears have been trained by years of tape trading underground demos from South America but I’d imagine that a good portion of Mutilator’s potential market wouldn’t have been so kind. 

Mutilator are often referred to as a death/thrash act & I’ve regularly seen the black metal tag chucked around too. That may well have been an accurate description for the band’s early demo & compilation recordings but by the time they came to record “Immortal Force” they’d dropped any reference to black metal. There are still a few death metal references here & there but it’s predominantly a thrash metal record & a particularly violent one at that. Mutilator combine the approach of your darker & more aggressive US thrash bands like Slayer & Dark Angel with the razor-sharp incisiveness of Teutonic thrash outfits like Kreator & Sodom & the raw primitivism of local heroes Sepultura & Sarcofago. The hints at death metal mainly come about through the use of purely palm-muted tremolo riffs & the occasional beat that borders on blast territory. When Mutilator slow things down for chuggier mid-tempo bridges though there can be very little doubt about what genre you’re listening to. In fact, I have to admit that they’re a much better band when they’re going flat out. Those slower parts are easily the least impressive on the album as the riffs tend to be pretty simple & generic while the inverse is true of the faster parts which seem to draw on “Darkness Descends” era Dark Angel more often than not. This is pretty much a total riff-fest though. It really is a shame about the poor production because one gets the distinct impression that some of this quality riffage has had its blade blunted. This isn’t necessarily the case with the guitar solos however as Alexander Magoo’s lead work is one of the more appealing elements of the album. He goes completely berserk in playing as many notes as he can possibly fit into his allocated time & does some serious damage to his whammy bar in the process. There’s not a lot of precision or theory about his contribution however it’s very effective nonetheless. You can comfortably pick up the influence of Slayer’s Kerry King on his technique however I often find myself being reminded of the Hofmann brothers’ efforts on the first couple of Deicide records too so this is possibly another link to a death metal-tinged sound.  

Much like some of Mutilator’s Brazilian peers, you’d be a brave man to put your money on the band staying completely in time & “Immortal Force” has its fair share of timing issues. You won’t find that it hinders your enjoyment factor as much as it might have on other Cogumelo releases like Holocausto’s “Campo de exterminio” but the two records do share similar attributes in this regard. My problems with Holocausto’s debut were centred around the fact that the drum beats that were employed weren’t suitable for the riffs that were played over them so it often sounded like the guitarists were playing a different song to the drummer & you get a little bit of that here too. It’s not that any of the musicians can’t play their instruments. It’s more that they struggle to stay in time with a beat that’s being played at a tempo that seems inappropriate for the task. In saying this though, the flaws can often be as much of an attraction as a distraction with South American extreme metal. On a more positive note, some of the transitions have been beautifully executed with the band clearly having been influenced by Sepultura who were already making this element of their game into somewhat of a signature. Sepultura would throw in an additional bar or a quickfire drumming change at a key moment to ensure that they really maximized the transition into the next verse with all band members coming together in unison & Mutilator have done a good job at emulating that technique. 

Vocalist Kleber is apparently a lot less growly than his predecessor which may be why I don’t seem to associate Mutilator with death metal as much as other people that might be familiar with their early demo & compilation work. He opts for more of a bark & reminds me heavily of Sodom’s Atom Angelripper with little bits of Sepultura’s Max Calalera here & there. I quite like his delivery even if he’s prone to trying to stuff too many words into short passages at times. Perhaps this is a symptom of singing in English which is not his native language so you can expect the usual humorous South American lyrical quirks. I’ve always enjoyed the blatant grammatical errors in Brazilian thrash of the time & Mutilator seem to have been a little more successful than some it has to be said. The lyrics focus mainly on the usual topics of violence & hatred which suits the violent music down to the ground. 

Despite all of its flaws, I find Mutilator’s music hard not to like. It has an authenticity & integrity about it that accentuates its metal street credibility. The production problems do limit the level that my appreciation has the potential to go however there’s more than enough quality song-writing on offer to get me banging my head & thrashing my body around. There’s an overall consistency to the tracklisting that you won’t find in many South American extreme metal releases & I don’t think there’s actually a weak track included. I do think that opener “Memorial Stone Without Name” is probably the weakest of them though & I would have liked to see the album kick off with one of the stronger tracks like “Butcher”, “Tormented Soul” or “Paranoiac Command”. This is more of an observation than a complaint though & overall I think Mutilator have produced one of the more successful Brazilian debuts of the time. In fact, I’d comfortably take it over the first up efforts from Attomica, Exterminator, Holocausto or Chakal. It’s worth exploring if you’re into the more cult/necro South American extreme metal of the period. 

For fans of: Slayer, “Darkness Descends”-era Dark Angel & 80’s Sepultura