Brutal Truth

Avantgarde grind that explored extremes of speed and collision.

Need to Control Earache 1994

Production: Reasonably clear and relatively ambient on the noise tracks. Review: Brutal Truth began as extreme grindcore, and created that well, but with this release have added inummerable gifts to the genre. Instead of being flat, basic, straightforward music, this is tonal and dynamic music, played with all of the ferocity and punkdom of the earlier material, and perhaps more, in that it has shed the elements of bad metal (predictability, reliance on blast beats) in favor of a more encompassing approach. This album is more punk, in both feel and tonality, than the last one (even including a cover of the germs' "media blitz") but it hasn't lost the spirit of grindcore, of loving messy, simple, brutal music. The songs are still short, and there are some well-done noise tracks which complement the music rather than separate songs. The overall speed is not as consistently high, nor is it as fast, but speed is used where needed with great alacrity and precision. This album crushes their first; where the first was flat speed rock, this is experimental, even daring, and very punk for the current crop of moronic grindcore. Tracklist: 1. Collapse (5:02) 2. Black Door Mine (1:41) 3. Turn Face (1:30) 4. Godplayer (4:06) 5. I See Red (2:50) 6. Ironlung (4:22) 7. Bite the Hand (2:06) 8. Ordinary Madness (5:05) 9. Media Blitz (0:56) 10. Judgement (2:34) 11. Brain Trust (2:43) 12. Choice of a New Generation (1:59) 13. Mainliner (2:19) 14. Displacement (4:15) 15. Crawlspace (1:35) Length: 43:05 Copyright © 1994 Earache

1. P.S.P.I. 2. Birth of Ignorance 3. Stench of Prophet 4. Ill-Neglect 5. Denial of Existence 6. Regression/Progression 7. Collateral Damage 8. Time 9. Walking Corpse 10. Monetary Gain 11. Wilt 12. H.O.P.E. 13. Blockhead 14. Anti-Homophobe 15. Unjust Compromise Length: 45:05

Extreme Conditions Demand Extreme Responses (Earache, 1992) To take grindcore to a further extreme, one had to face the tendency of the genre to drift toward overextensions of musical destruction and thus to dissipate into irrelevance, and in overcoming that to find a new technicality. Brutal Truth didn't on this album. Repeated patterns from the hallowed halls of fame of grind/hard/crustcore oblivion and high-speed repetitions of chromatic notes without harmonic or melodic composition produces an album that, thanks to intelligent guitar-drum interaction, is rhythmically compelling but devoid of artistic content. Pass this one by for their second.

1. Dementia 2. K.A.P. 3. Vision 4. Fucktoy 5. Jemenez Cricket 6. Soft Mind 7. Average People 8. Blue World 9. Callous 10. Fisting 11. Die Laughing 12. Dead Smart 13. Sympathy Kiss 14. Pork Farm 15. Promise 16. Foolish Bastard 17. Postulate Then Liberate 18. It's After the End of the World 19. Machine Parts 20. 4.20 21. Unbaptized 22. Prey Length: 72:24

Sounds of the Animal Kingdom (Relapse, 1997) Stepping back from the avantgarde edge of "Need to Control," Brutal Truth mix nontraditional grind factors as aesthetic complements and make the ashen, chromatic, directionless thrashing of their first album come together with some concept but mostly urgency and variation on form. The band have reconverged their sound upon a grindcore extreme of speed and almost schizophrenic complexity in this postmodern document of human despair. In contrast to the previous album, this is as demonstrative, immature and reactionary as their first album, which is similarly listenable for rhythm alone and in divergence from common form not of enough complexity to hold the attention of an experienced death/grind listener.

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