One thought on “Brutal Truth: Need To Control-1994.”

1. Post Grindcore – 95%
   we hope you die, February 3rd, 2019
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   Genres touting the ‘post’ qualification should be regarded with suspicion. These days ‘Post’ has almost become synonymous with ‘meta’. It is after the thing, beyond, transcendent; packed within in this is the assumption that we are done with the original ‘thing’, whatever it may be; rock, metal, modernism. Whatever is flaunting the ‘post’ adornment is the way of the future. Of course, when this term is used in music (much like ‘progressive’), it is not literally meant as ‘after’, it is meant as a specific (and usually shitly intellectual and creatively bankrupt) style of music. Grindcore is technically a form of post post punk, in that it was spawned from hardcore punk, which is itself a form of post punk. But post punk usually refers to something very different. And that would make post grindcore ‘post post post punk’. Well anyway, the title of this review has simply been selected to emphasise how weird and interesting grindcore became in the early 1990s, especially when one considers its standing as a genre within a genre within a genre. I would never insult Brutal Truth by sincerely calling them post anything.

   Former Nuclear Blast bassist and scene elder Dan Lilker founded Brutal Truth back in 1990. After ‘Extreme Conditions Demand Responses’, a fairly straightforward deathgrind debut in 1992 that borrowed heavily from New York hardcore, follow up ‘Need to Control’ landed in 1994. This is a different beast entirely. This is not your typical grindcore album, but it flaunts its idiosyncrasy in surprisingly subtle ways. There is something very clinical about the production on this album. Not quite industrial, which often touts a dirty static to enhance the mechanical aesthetic. This is something cleaner but no less mechanical. Which feels like a paradox, because all of the musicians play with more passion, speed, and diversity than pretty much any grindcore album to date.

   Vocals vary from a mid-range death metal growl that sounds almost effortless in its clarity, to a high pitched out of control screeching that still perfectly synch up with the rhythm section, creating unity from the chaos. The variation on this album is astounding for grindcore, but as mentioned previously, not in a way that begs the listener to pay attention to how ‘quirky’ or unusual it is. Ferociously fast music that seemingly loses control of itself will give way to cheery hardcore punk riffs, lumbering industrial numbers, sludge metal, and noise tracks. But the conceptual and aesthetic unity at work behind the entire album means all these things feel at home here. They are right where they should be.

   The result is an album of crystal clear extreme metal that somehow manages to incorporate aggression, melodrama, humour, and contemplation into a finished product that leaves one feeling cold (cold to existence that is, not the album). This is a sophisticated set of emotions to illicit from a grindcore band. And admittedly Brutal Truth must pull on an array of different influences to achieve it, but the finished product is nevertheless some of the most complex and aggressive grindcore on record.

   Brutal Truth’s ‘Need to Control’: call it industrial grind, imaginative grind, progressive grind, it doesn’t really matter, it’s just an outstanding album and certainly one of the best things going in grindcore even to this day. It ticks every box in terms of coherence, variation, extremity, and execution. I simply cannot fault it.

   Originally published at Hate Meditations

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