BRUTAL TRUTH — Extreme Conditions Demand Extreme Responses (review)

BRUTAL TRUTH — Extreme Conditions Demand Extreme Responses album cover

Album · 1992 · Deathgrind

5/5 · 2015-07-20
Vim Fuego

Not every band lives up to its name. Extreme was anything but extreme. Danger Danger was quite safe. Brutal Truth lived up to its name in every way possible. This album is brutal as all fuck, and some of the messages it contains are so true it hurts. Put together by former Anthrax/SOD/Nuclear Assault/insert-huge-list-of-bands-here bassist Dan Lilker and mental hospital outpatient and sometimes journalist Kevin Sharpe, most people thought the band a bit of a gimmick to start with, banking on Lilker’s previous experience. No one expected anything quite so deeply rooted in Grindcore. Drummer Scott Lewis had formerly played for the legendary Winter, the enigmatic late 80s Doom band which played at a glacial pace, so he wasn’t expected to keep up the pace for a Grindcore band. However, Lilker and Sharpe had been studying Japanese Hardcore in some detail, while Sharpe had a liking for power tools. The combination proved deadly. Y’see, Japanese Hardcore isn’t like your everyday garden variety Hardcore. It’s not all about burly, sweaty bald men covered in tattoos yelling about unity and vegetarianism. Japanese Hardcore is utterly insane, played so fast, as Sharpe once put it, you need to hold your nuts in a sling. Sounds painful... As for the power tools, Sharpe liked attacking pieces of metal with angle grinders and hammers and recording the resulting racket. There’s a definite Metal vibe right from the start of ‘Birth Of Ignorance’, with the guitar tone, Kevin Sharpe’s growl, the double kick drum rumble, and then the blast beats. This could be put down to Colin Richardson’s production. After all, he’s the man who brought out the metal in Carcass and even crusty Punks The Exploited. However, this is Grindcore, not Metal. Sharpe pulls out the screaming demon vocals to go with the death grunt, and there’s no time for any superfluous solos or leads or drum fills. Second song ‘Stench of Prophet’ is where things really get grinding. Scott Lewis out-blasts the rest of the band with consummate ease. Dan Lilker’s dirty distorted bass makes its presence well and truly known, grumbling so low it upsets seismographs. The riffing is sharp and simple. The overall effect is very clear and intense sounding, at a time when many Grindcore outfits were drowned in distortion and fuzz. A few tracks stand out above the others. Clocking in at around a minute and a half long, ‘Walking Corpse’ is a song built around three incredible bursts of hyper-blastbeat energy. Rather than being a literal tale of zombies and the walking dead, Sharpe rails against the repetitive pointlessness of the nine-to-five existence. It also includes a memorable sample intro of a distressed voice saying “I hope you make sure we’re properly dead before you start...” ‘Wilt’ is another blast-abusing song, which also has a memorable intro, this time Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan: “Do you believe in God?” “I believe in myself.” It aims at evangelical religion, an easy but always worthwhile target. It starts with a slow, menacing riff, which pops up between the blasts throughout the song. ‘Anti-Homophobe’ was originally misinterpreted by a number of fans as an anti-homosexuality song. It’s as much anti-prejudice as it is pro-gay, but it’s all aggression. There’s also a small matter of a world record included on this album, all 2.18 seconds of it. ‘Collateral Damage’ is a musical marathon alongside Napalm Death’s 0.75 second ‘You Suffer’, but it holds the record for the world’s shortest music video. You could watch it 82 times in the space of the average three minute music video. This isn’t an album where the listener can get bored easily. So much flies past so quickly your subconscious attention shifts from one idea to the next, hoping you can keep up. The political lyrics and the powerful imagery of the cover are highly thought provoking, and a little easier to comprehend than the music. It is also reasonably easy for the average Metal fan to stomach. Alongside Carcass’ ‘Necroticism: Descanting The Insalubrious’, ‘Extreme Conditions Demand Extreme Responses’ helped set a new standard for Grindcore, paving the way for outfits like Discordance Axis and Nasum. Grindcore need not be slipshod and amateurish, it could be tight and clear, and Metal fans could listen to it without feeling alienated.