Be forewarned: BRAT are back, and they’re coming in for the kill.
Two years on from the release of the Louisiana “bimboviolence” band’s debut LP, Social Grace, the group have announced plans to deliver a sophomore follow-up called Manslayer. While the record arrives in full in September, they served their seething, death-drilling “Manslayer (Hell Hath No Fury)” single to streamers earlier today (July 14th).
The new BRAT track naturally reflects the classic proverb “Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.” While the song delivers mud-flinging death-sludge, terror-trilled thrash licks and a range of gutturals from Liz Selfish, the title cut was inspired by “women’s revenge”-themed country tracks like the Chicks’ “Goodbye Earl,” Carrie Underwood’s “Before He Cheats” and Miranda Lambert’s “Gunpowder & Lead” — songs in which women “took their power back and left the lifeless bodies of the men who wronged them in their wake.”
“There’s not a lot of those tropes in death metal, which I think primarily is because there’s not a lot of women in that space,” Selfish says in a statement. “I thought that was a really cool perspective and I really liked the storytelling aspect of it.”
Up above, you’ll find the sickle-swingin’, slasher-styled music video for “Manslayer (Hell Hath No Fury)” — which also features performance footage of the band.
The 17-song Manslayer was recorded at Chicago’s Bricktop Recording by producer/engineer/mixer Andy Nelson (Weekend Nachos), and later mastered by Brad Boatright (Deadguy, Pig Destroyer, Lathe of Heaven). While co-founding guitarist Brenner Moate scripted the lyrics to Social Grace, the words on Manslayer are Selfish’s domain.
“It’s quite new territory for me, and it wasn’t necessarily an intentional thing initially,” she explains. “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.”
Overall, the album is said to be darker and more “overtly violent” than BRAT’s earlier work. The album also features guest spots from Revocation guitarist-vocalist David Davison and Walls of Jericho’s Candace Buckingham.
Manslayer is out September 25th via Prosthetic Records. The stiletto-pointed, skull-crushing artwork was crafted up by visual artist Wes Benscoter (Mortician, Slayer). Ther art and tracklisting are down below, while the album can be pre-ordered here.
Manslayer tracklisting:
Intro
Aileen Wuornos
Speculum Bleed
Bone Spurs
Botch Tox
Media Slop
Trophy Hunting
Asking for Hell
Heretic Burning
Interlude
Manslayer (Hell Hath No Fury)
Bloody Mary
Femicidal Vengeance (feat. David Davidson of Revocation)
Spit on His Grave
Ways to Kill Your Husband
Blistered Tongues (feat. Candace Buckingham of Walls of Jericho)
Outro