Subjugated

Subjugated is a Spanish technical brutal death metal entity. Their debut full-length, Inherent Belligerence, was released on 16 January 2026 via Amputated Vein Records.

Subjugated, Inherent Belligerence Review: This review will evaluate every aspect of the album, from its intricate musical composition to its production.

Subjugated — Inherent Belligerence album cover

The First Three Sins, The Summary

The First Sin, The Strings/Keys: A dual-guitar formation delivering aggressive, wicked technical hostility, alternating between tremolo-driven violence and slam-weighted punishment. The Second Sin, The Vocals: Deep, commanding gutturals engineered for domination — close-mic’d, unrelenting, and militaristic in presence. The Third Sin, The Percussions: Devastating double-bass artillery and implacable blast beats, executed with surgical discipline and ruthless velocity.

The Fourth Sin, Overall Discussion

Threshold of Detonation

As soon as you press play, the opening hymn, Unnatural Condition, greets the listener with an audio clip—a brief moment of calm before the storm. It transitions seamlessly into Transcending Boundaries of Cognizance, where the listener is immediately submerged in a technical sonic onslaught of instruments and vocals.

Discipline Over Simplicity

Subjugated is not interested in simplicity. This is a display of precision and aggression where every instrument is pushed to its limit. The sheer technicality of the arrangements creates a sense of overwhelming power, dragging the listener deep into their world of Inherent belligerence. It’s a surge that challenges the senses and demands total attention.

Inherent Belligerence clocks in at over twenty-nine minutes, spread across nine ear- and bone-shattering hymns. This is a fruit of brutality darkened to its marrow, heavy as iron, and sickening as a fevered dream. It fuses the ruthless grip of brutal death with the keen, perilous explorations of technical death, forging a spectre that will not loosen its hold, nor grant the mercy of a Sunday stroll.

Violence as Condition

Lyrically, Subjugated focuses on violence as an inherent condition; this is not gore for spectacle nor narrative storytelling. Everything about this record points toward a thematic core built on discipline, domination, and the cold stripping-away of humanity. It is precision-engineered aggression that demands total submission.

A deliberately hostile, precision-engineered slab of Spanish brutality.

Devilmanship & Instrumental Authority

This soul- and bone-crushing album features a tight, powerful devilmanship. The execution is flawless, producing a solid composition both instrumentally and musically. The Xabat and Turbine dual-guitar formation delivers an aggressive, wicked technical hostility—shifting between tremolo-driven violence and slam-weight chugs. Double-tracked with militant symmetry, the left/right separation gives the riffs a mechanical, almost hydraulic feel.

Oskar’s bass provides reinforcement rather than independence, thickening the guitars into a unified wall of force.

Percussion, Breath, and Control

The backbone of this record is Edgar’s devastating double bass and implacable blast beats. This hyper-precise battery is captured with a production that prioritises speed legibility. The blasts and gravity rolls remain perfectly intelligible even at high velocity—a deliberate choice to avoid the mud that plagues lesser brutal death metal.

Igor’s vocals are deep, commanding gutturals engineered for domination. Recorded with close-mic intensity, they offer minimal room sound and maximum throat pressure.

Production as Weapon

The overall sonic character is one of compressed brutality. The production leans into surgical clarity rather than organic grit; every transient is sharpened with a philosophy of precision over warmth. There is zero atmospheric padding here—no ambience, no melodic reprieve, and no space-building.

The sound is engineered for continuous impact. Inherent Belligerence is a work of brutality darkened to its marrow, heavy as iron, and diseased in tone. It is precision-engineered aggression that grants no mercy.

Totality of Assault

Overall, Inherent Belligerence is a sick, brutal, heavy forbidden fruit of art. It is a record that rewards the disciplined listener, offering a workshop in how to weaponize technicality without losing the primal, suffocating weight of true death metal.

Terminal Indoctrination

The album closes with the final hymn, Oppressive Indoctrination, the music fades into darkness, but it leaves a haunting resonance ringing in the listener’s ears—not unlike the distant, sombre tolling of bells.

The Fifth Sin, The Memorabilia

For me, Inherent Belligerence arrives as a genuine shock. As soon as I heard the second piece, Transcending Boundaries of Cognizance, I was hooked; my thoughts and words had to be inked, as I transcended further into this dark abyss. This is not just brutal death metal, but something technical and punishing—a sound spawned from the lineage of Dying Fetus, Suffocation, Cryptopsy, and Necrophagist — but a sound of their own.

The Sixth Sin, The Artwork

The artwork, depicting a dark, classical scene of mass martyrdom and architectural ruin, perfectly mirrors the wall-of-force aesthetic found within the music.

The Seventh Sin, Disrelish

There is nothing here to disrelish. This is precision-engineered aggression that grants no mercy, designed and uncompromising in execution—a record that offers no relief, no accessibility, and no escape, nor a Sunday stroll. A sick and heavy forbidden fruit of art.

Promotional material provided by Subjugated.

The Hymns

01. Unnatural Condition
02. Transcending Boundaries of Cognizance
03. Impenitence Discipline
04. Shroud of Thorns
05. Beyond Noumenon
06. Homo Homini Lupus
07. Equity & Retaliation
08. Inexorably Psychotic Disorder
09. Oppressive Indoctrination