For those not in-the-know, grindcore loosely describes a punk/death-metal hybrid pioneered in the late 80s by Napalm Death, Repulsion, and Terrorizer. It sounds like sticking your head in a blender while the apocalypse destroys the rest of your kitchen. Brutal Truth is at the forefront of second-generation bands that have kept the genre alive, and one of the biggest names out there, but don’t let their ubiquity fool you—they remain true to the sound and scene. Their success rests on their uncanny ability to create truly thick-sounding brutal records with top-notch modern production without sacrificing the integrity of their political punk aesthetic, despite being on Relapse, a label that consistently puts out stale, irrelevant, cliché grind that is a disgrace to the legacy of the genre. Dissonant, noisy, aggressive-as-fuck yet somehow cerebral—what more could you want? Also, be sure to play the track “Fuck Cancer” for all your loved ones who are cancer survivors. FCC clean, because human ears can’t possibly hope to understand the vocals.

1. (3:34) Fast. Loud.
2. (1:26) Short, fast, loud.
3. (1:58) Ibid.
4. (0:59) Even shorter. Also faster. Just as loud.
5. (1:28) Not as short or fast, still pretty loud.
6. (1:41) Holy fucking shitballs of christ, this is fast.
7. (0:56) Noise, fast drums, spoken sample.
8. (0:47) Really fucking short track. Did I mention it’s also fast?
9. (1:41) …yup, you should be starting to get the hang of this by now…
10. (1:14) …yes, it’s STILL brutal…
11. (3:47) A nice change of pace: creepy droning; then lurching, mid-paced death metal madness.
12. (1:25) And then it’s back to short, fast, loud.
13. (2:55) Not quite as short, not always THAT fast… still pretty loud.
14. (1:29) AHHHH MY FACE JUST MELTED
15. (2:36) FUUUUCK I THINK I’M ALSO BLEEDING INTERNALLY
16. (1:35) In case you ever doubted that this was brutal, here’s more proof.
17. (2:08) Riffs! And they’re played fast and um… loud…
18. (1:31) Relentlessly fast with some bizarre fretboard gymnastics reminiscent of Cephalic Carnage.
19. (1:49) The blender analogy makes a lot of sense with this track
20. (0:45) “twenty bag”—wait, you mean there can be fast songs about weed, too? No way!
21. (0:05) YOUSUFFER(BUTWHY?)
22. (3:43) Crushing dirge-y riffs crawl along—despite fast parts, the song generally feels slow.
23. (15:21) a full quarter-hour of, um… what sounds like a collage of studio material—everything from blastbeats to guitar feedback and chatter layered and distorted to all hell. Play this when you want to blow up the transmitter.