ONEONTA – Oneonta-based heavy metal trio Brotality will release its third full-length album, “Jaws of the Earth,” this week, celebrating with a hometown performance at Foothills Performing Arts & Civic Center on Friday, Sept. 25.
The all-ages record release show will be held in The Loft space located at 24 Market St. Doors open at 9 p.m., with music beginning at 9:30 p.m. Quantifier and Crumbling As We Speak will also perform. Tickets are $15.
For singer and guitarist Bryce Maopolski, the Oneonta show brings the band’s growing national ambitions back to the community where Brotality developed its audience, sharpened its live sound and found a lasting home base.
“I think metal explores every angle of emotions in the most intense way,” Maopolski said. “Which is my favorite thing because then I get to feel each of those emotions in the most intense way while I listen to the music. It just makes it hit even harder and it allows me to explore my emotions more.”
Brotality consists of brothers Bryce Maopolski and Reece Maopolski, who plays bass and sings, along with drummer John Haring. The group blends the influence of classic thrash metal with modern melody, progressive grooves, thick bass tones, forceful vocals and tightly constructed riffs.
That musical foundation began at home for the Maopolski brothers.
“My parents were huge metalheads. We’d grow up and my parents would be, like, playing screaming music all over the house and stuff.”
The brothers formed Brotality in 2016 in their hometown of Narrowsburg, 90 miles south of Oneonta in Sullivan County, NY. The project grew from their shared desire to move beyond performing covers and begin creating music of their own.
“We played in cover bands all the time, and we would just go out to local bars and play three or four hourcover sets. And it was always really fun, but we just wanted to start writing our own music. So, I think there was always the hope that like, ‘Hey, let’s build this and grow people who enjoy it and connect and make a community around it.’ But honestly,” Maopolski said, “the main objective of starting it was just like, ‘Let’s just have an outlet to write our own music instead of playing other people’s music.’”
The band released its first full-length album, “Worldwide Desolation,” in 2021, the same year Bryce Maopolski began studying at SUNY Oneonta. Reece Maopolski joined him at the university a year later. Haring became the band’s drummer in 2022, solidifying the current three-member lineup.
Brotality has continued releasing new material while keeping Oneonta as its base. Its catalog includes the 2022 album “The Woods Will End You,” the 2024 EP “It Feeds” and the 2026 EP “Animalistic.” The new record arrives as the band reaches its 10th year.
Although Brotality began in Narrowsburg, Bryce Maopolski said its identity as a working band took shape in Oneonta. While the brothers studied in the Music Industry program at SUNY Oneonta, the group built a following across the city and the Catskills, playing during a period when audiences and performers were returning to live music after pandemic restrictions.
“I think a huge part of it was the timeframe,” Maopolski explained. “Everyone was kind of coming out of lockdown. This was fall 2021 and everybody was looking for things to do. This is right as we were starting to play shows in the area. People were just so happy and excited to get out and ee bands play places, I think that was a massive factor in what kind of kicked off what felt like a boom in the Oneonta scene for a couple of years.” He added, “It’s so easy for everyone to just descend on downtown and have a myriad of places to go, whether it was the old [Club Odyssey] teen center or Foothills or the Black Oak or Wise Guys, there were so many places within a half-mile radius where people could see shows.”
Now out of college, the members are committing themselves more fully to the band and preparing for their largest headlining tour to date. Brotality has cited bands including Mastodon and Megadeth as influences, yet Maopolski said the group’s creative reference points continue to evolve as its members seek unfamiliar sounds across metal’s many subgenres.
“They always change,” said Maopolski when asked about influences. “Because we are always trying to find new bands. And I think the thing that gets us all excited the most about new bands right now is when a new band feels like they are doing something that hasn’t been done before. I think we like to look for more bands that are doing stuff that we haven’t heard before and try to dive deeper and deeper and deeper into the subgenres.”
That search for new approaches has helped Brotality expand beyond its local beginnings without abandoning the sense of community that first motivated the brothers to write original music. Maopolskisaid the band’s purpose also extends beyond performing heavy music.
“Music really does mean a lot to me. This is something that I want to spend every free minute focusing on and just figuring out. I also care about spreading a message of hope through this band and partnering with nonprofits and getting something more than, like, just cool riffs out there.”
The Sept. 25 Oneonta concert begins a three-show album-release weekend. Brotality is scheduled to perform in Syracuse on Sept. 26 and Brooklyn on Sept. 27. The “Jaws of the Earth” U.S. tour begins Nov. 6 in Rochester and continues through Dec. 19.
For a band that formed as an outlet for two brothers to write music together, the Foothills show representsboth a release-night celebration and a return to the Oneonta stages that helped Brotality grow. More information about the band and its tour is available at brotalityband.com.
This article was originally published on AllOtsego.com
