Noise Rockers Bruxa Maria Deliver Thrilling Streaks Of Chaos On Their New Album

The volatile U.K. group Bruxa Maria deliver excitingly attention-grabbing blasts of noise rock chaos on their brand new album The Maddening. Their tumultuous songs pack strong and gripping rock melody, but it’s absolutely drowned in energetic waves of noise and hazy atmosphere, adding a major extra helping of physically and psychologically upending sonic chemical burns to the mix. Listening could be compared to throwing caution to the wind and standing in the midst of a barrage of oncoming traffic — the relentless energy packs a thrilling sense of a nihilistic lunge for self-determination. In other words — there’s definitely a lot going on here.

The album features a cacophony of streaks of groove that are inextricably intertwined with disorienting blasts of psychedelia. It’s a triumph — not necessarily a happy or upbeat triumph, but a triumph of energy nonetheless, as spotlighted by the slowed down but still incessantly persistent melodies that build up like a haze by the album’s end. The opening track — which doubles as the title track — quickly devolves into a richly textured but absolutely relentlessly energetic explosion of drums and guitar that feels like two avalanches coming down at once, and throughout that song, swaggering, heavy low-end riffing streaks across the album’s palette with irreverently persistent and pretty damn captivating energy.

Thanks to the brazen persistence of the energy on this album, as the songs pass by, Bruxa Maria feel a bit like they’re knocking listeners over the head with the melodies and rhythm at the core of The Maddening. The quite fittingly named song “Brutal Attack,” for instance, sports menacing barrages of super heavy riffs with a filthily thick sound, and the overall rhythm abruptly shifts back and forth like a musically expressed mental frenzy. And that idea actually bursts right to the forefront when Bruxa Maria get to their track “Pushed To The Brink Of Madness Then Demonised,” which features a barely conscious bass chug repeating in a haze of feedback that together feels like struggling to not fly apart into a million little pieces. It’s like the musically expressed point of the final moment before falling right on over that brink and right into the madness — and wordless screeches even seem to ring out in the background, buried somewhat by the bubbling sonic stew.

The Maddening is not an easily forgettable album — it’s the sound of knocking over tables, throwing their contents around the room, and just letting what sounds like it all out, whatever exactly “it” might happen to be.

5/5 Stars

Listen to the music below! It’s available via Hominid Sounds. Click here to buy it.