Artist: Brutal Truth
Title: For the Ugly and Unwanted, This is Grindcore
Type: Album
Label: Season Of Mist
Regular readers of our reviews, and indeed the letters pages of Terrorizer (Aha! So that was you then! LH) over the last few years will be familiar with my overall militant stance on anything connected in any way, shape or form with the suffix ‘-core’. Hardcore, metalcore - in fact anything (including UK applecore, you wags over at Acid Reign) in anyway core could just about be wiped off the face of the earth for all I care. That is, except oldschool grindcore. While most modern grindcore acts are just a little too knowing and smart for their own good, I have always had a soft spot for Brutal Truth. Their lo-fi, metallic version of that most uncompromising bastard of punk and metal struck a chord with me. The antagonism and general air of chaos came across well on their studio albums, and the audio representation of their farewell tour on the double CD ‘Goodbye Cruel World’ served to underpin the tensions at the heart of their break up. While often an uncomfortable listen due to the sarcasm of vocalist Kevin Sharp, such as ‘pretending to be Black Sabbath is fun!’ preceding their storming rendition of ‘Cornucopia.’
It was therefore little surprise that the seminal outfit should go the way of many of their peers back at around the turn of the millennium. An outfit that produced such classic cuts as ‘Choice of a New Generation’ and ‘Let's Go To War’ was never truly destined for extreme longevity given their core values of antagonism, slacker fury and the sheer bloody pace of the noise they inflicted upon hapless audiences. They surprised a fair few onlookers by reforming back in around 2007, and have raised even more eyebrows with an excellent come back album in the form of ‘Evolution through Revolution’. ‘For the Ugly and Unwanted...’ is the perfect DVD companion, not only for fans of Brutal Truth or Grindcore, but also of great, dirty and authentic extreme metal in general. The main feature was filmed at the ‘Obscene Extreme’ festival held in the Czech republic in 2007, and provides a perfect counterpoint to the extremely slick, polished death metal productions being released by Poland's Metalmind. There's no fancy stage show here, nor are there any roof-mounted sweeping audience-scraping camera shots to delight the senses. This is exactly the best way to capture the rough and ready violence of the veteran outfit seemingly having fun. The DIY roots of punk are evident here, with half a dozen hangers on stood just off stage centre at any one time, hand-held digi-cam footage and no attempts at rectifying the ragged sound. Ordinarily, this apparent lack of professionalism would be an issue, but let's be honest, what would the point of smooth, airbrushed grindcore be ? This presents Brutal Truth at their best - honest, blasting and having the time of their lives while the assembled grindheads regularly invade the stage and dive back into the heaving masses. Not for them the crowd barrier or the strict separation between band and audience. With an extensive set covering all the classics, great pacey editing and a band in their element, even the most po-faced and ‘true’ metalhead couldn't fail to be impressed.
The extras are pretty generous too. Also attached are four bonus concerts - two from the 1998 tour of Australia (which features heavily on the afore mentioned ‘Goodbye Cruel World’ CD), one from Houston, Texas at around the same time, and the last from way back in 1991 from California, just prior to the release of their debut album on Earache records. This is a mixed back - from some quite professional looking footage from the Iron Duke, Sydney - which although filmed on VHS runs at over an hour, and has some in-focus footage and acceptable sound quality, through to the earliest footage, which does suffer somewhat from the overloaded audio. The Californian footage is the clearest in terms of the overall clarity of sound, though the fixed camera doesn't provide much in the way of visual stimulus - which is at best a pedantic complaint given that all four pieces of footage are really only comparable to superior bootleg concerts in the first place! A great release then, and surprisingly not only one for the converted. Get this if you see it - the (Brutal) truth shall set you free!
http://www.brutaltruth.com/
http://www.myspace.com/brutalfuckingtruth
Chris Davison
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