Brutal Truth

Avantgarde grind that explored extremes of speed and collision.

Brutal Truth - Extreme Conditions Demand Extreme Responses (1992)
Brutal Truth - Need to Control (1994)
Brutal Truth - Sounds of the Animal Kingdom (1997)

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.

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

Brutal Truth - Need to Control - Grindcore 1994 Earache

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.

brutal truth extreme conditions demand extreme responses 1992 earache records

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.

brutal truth sounds of the animal kingdom 1997 relapse

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.