Burst

Post-hardcore but not post-song, Belgium’s Brutus brings the kind of raw-throated intensity you’d expect from the best alt rock. Originating as a Refused tribute band (thus fulfilling the prophecy of the shape of punk), that Swedish act serves as a touchstone here, but Brutus feel more intimate and emotionally vulnerable — probably due to Stefanie Mannaerts’s passionate delivery and the more melancholy vibe all around. “March” has the most new noise to it, but elsewhere they get more introspective, like on the shoe-gazing “Birds,” and more brutal, like the black metal-inflected “Not Caring.” Nothing to refuse here.