Brat have put out Speculum Bleed, the third song released ahead of Manslayer, which Prosthetic Records issues on 25 September. It is the second album from the New Orleans band, after Social Grace in 2024, and it holds seventeen tracks.
The record was tracked at Bricktop Recording in Chicago with Andy Nelson of Weekend Nachos producing, engineering and mixing, and mastered by Brad Boatright. Wes Benscoter, who has drawn for Slayer and Mortician, did the cover. Two guests appear on it: David Davidson of Revocation on Femicidal Vengeance, and Candace Buckingham of Walls of Jericho on Blistered Tongues.
“We're evolving the bimboviolence and the campiness by making it all a little bit darker with this album, and a bit more overtly violent,” says vocalist Liz Selfish, who also credits Cannibal Corpse as the reference behind the Speculum Bleed video, directed by John Coglan.
Seventeen songs across a record that mixes death metal, thrash and hardcore is a lot of album for a band two records in. Brat spend November on the road across Europe in support of Napalm Death, which is the sort of company that tends to settle the question.