END TIME: BRUTAL TRUTH AGE LIKE A FINE WINE
Confession: I far prefer Brutal Truth’s more recent work to the stuff I cut my teeth on back in the 90s. While some bands shoot their wad completely in the first three records (I’m looking at you, Metallica), other bands mature with age. Brutal Truth belongs squarely in the latter camp, with End Time standing as a perfect example of how the band has grown as songwriters.
I grew up on 90s grindcore. Bands like Excruciating Terror, Assück, and Agoraphobic Nosebleed were the soundtrack of the skate park and Saturday afternoons bored off my ass, tanked up on coffee, leafing through back issues of X-Force. Back then, boners and blast beats went hand in hand — yet I was only a casual Brutal Truth fan.
The group broke up in 1999, along with a lot other bands of the era. Unlike other bands soldiering through the alt-rock years in the underground, however, Brutal Truth got back together in 2006 and began promptly releasing the best music of their career. 2009’s Evolution Through Revolution proved that Brutal Truth hadn’t lost a step since the days when they were releasing splits with Spazz and Rupture.
On End Time, Brutal Truth don’t just regurgitate the same shit I’ve heard a zillion times since I first gave Anticapital a spin. That alone makes them a cut above the bulk of current grindcore bands, happy to throw death growls (or even worse, cricket vocals) over something generically br00t4l and call it a day.
While BT don’t exhibit any progressive or technical tendencies on End Time, they bring something refreshing to grindcore — namely, a sharp rock n’ roll edge that makes the genre about as catchy as it’s ever going to get. The chaos and noise isn’t the grating sound of self-conscious abrasion. Rather, it’s the expected slop of a rock and roll band that knows how to swing. End Time doesn’t bring grindcore to the next level. On the contrary, it goes back to basics, setting a new standard for grimy, light-speed rock and roll.
Bottom Line: Every city from Portland, OR to Providence, RI needs at least one dive bar with End Time on the jukebox.
(four out of five horns)
-NP
