Death Metal is a style that for many people represents a certain bluntness, filth, and grime. However, within the same genre there are bands with a certain accessibility, and I’m not talking about the Melodic Death Metal category, but something you could describe as “easy listening”. A kind of entry point to potentially more deep-diving in the genre. That is Baest in a nutshell.
Death Metal, but so “accessible” that plenty of Death Metal collectors do not have Baest in their collection. Death Metal that suddenly gets covered by media where Death Metal normally never appears, using terms like “perfect”, “a Death Metal statement”, “This is Death Metal!” and “flawless”. But we aren’t that foolish, are we?
That makes Baest stick around somewhere, without starting a discussion about whether they are a successful band, because I believe that right away, but it explains why a lot of you leave it alone.
Next to five original tracks, where among others Sven de Caluwé (Aborted) and Trevor Strnad (The Black Dahlia Murder) joined for guest vocals, they covered ‘Second to None’, by Entombed A.D. And it is pretty simple: Death Metal with an old school approach like Bloodbath, a very Swedish sounding tone with a Bolt Thrower groove, but without that raw, filthy edge. A chainsaw with a noise limiter, a tank without a cannon and tracks… something like that. The songs have proper structures, and on this EP occasionally a progressive or unconventional angle. The riffs will surely do well live and for many this will be a party at a festival.
But I prefer to hear that real bluntness, filth, and grime.
