While Brötzmann typically performs with the power trio lineup of Massaker, with guitar, bass guitar and drum set, he only uses rock and roll and heavy metal music as a basis for his music. Brötzmann's technique has been praised: "...his attack on the instrument "explosive, obstreperous, large scale, textural," timbral asserts the material facts of string-pickup-amplifier more bluntly than anyone else currently involved in rock".

Brötzmann has been compared to Jimi Hendrix (perhaps an inevitable comparison for an adventurous left-handed Fender Stratocaster player prone to extreme loudness and deft manipulation of audio feedback), and to Edgard Varèse, who, like Brötzmann, demonstrated a keen awareness for the importance of sound as well as properly notated music.

Brötzmann's father, Peter Brötzmann, is a free jazz saxophone player. They have recorded a duo album, Last Home.