At times the condition of rather ordinary soloing permeates a song. For example, the short-lived and uninspired guitar feature on "Vermin" falls fairly short of the mark set so high by the rest of the track's otherwise thrash-tastic outpouring. In the case of that song, favoring the more thrash inspired solo would have been preferable to showcasing the hardcore lead HateSphere selected to accentuate. To offset that critique, admittedly the solo mid-way through "What I See I Despise" is a fine exhibition of this band's lead guitar playing ability. Not to mention concluding "What I See I Despise" with some of the chunkiest riffs on the album doesn't hurt a band's score either -- not by a long shot. Hooks and chops on _Ballet of the Brute_ fly like a beer bottles at bar brawl. As mentioned earlier, the calculatedly dim nuance works well for these lads from the very beginning intro to the couple of unlisted tracks at the end of the disc. HateSphere doing a little "Bark at the Moon" and "Caught in the Mosh" -- that's well worth the price of admission there, ladies and gentlemen.