Brutus rage like a maelstrom. They are a meteor shower of sound. This trio from Leuven, Belgium create expansive, stratospheric punk quite unlike any other band around.

Here the searing, soaring guitars of shoegaze are amped up to hardcore punk speed, drums gallop like wild horses over open larval planes and drumming singer Stefanie Mannaerts offers some of the most impassioned vocals heard in recent times, capable of shifting from deceptively melodic to out-right larynx-punishing in the blink of an eye.

With post-rock construction, black metal dynamics, hardcore energy, prog and math-rock flourishes and pure pop melodies all detectible on their debut album Burst, Brutus manage to straddle the significant divide between Slayer and Savages, The Smiths and Slowdive, Dillinger Escape Plan and dEUS – and all with just three members expertly colluding to make a sound as monolithic as it is emotive.

Trouble comes in threes….and so do Brutus.

In April 2016 Brutus decamped to Vancouver to record Burst, reasoning that because Flanders – the Dutch-speaking area of northern Belgium – is so small that any recordings done at home would surely be interrupted by hard-partying well-wishers gate-crashing the studio day and night.

It was a wise move. Burst is a 21st century rock album: challenging and exhilarating. Colossal. A cathedral-sized noise. A unique listening experience. Brutus are here.