Brutal Truth - End Time
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Can we host a “Best Rich Hoak Drumming Face” contest during the next string of Brutal Truth dates? The drummer’s grimaces are the stuff of legend in metal mags and the blogosphere, but it would be great to have documentation of the best of the best. Much like the Venus sisters’ trademark grunts and yelps on the tennis court, Hoak’s expressions as he bashes the living hell out of his kit can be considered a byproduct of greatness, allowing his inner skin-flayer to blossom into the full-on ass kickery of “Control Room”, End Time‘s daunting opener. Like Buddy Rich on an amphetamine bender, Hoak’s all over the instrumental noise piece (noise-strumental? Somebody trademark it before Pitchfork steals it!), fluttering around his kit while guitarist Erik Burke and bassist Dan Lilker paint his efforts with wrenching distortion for a patience-testing entry in extreme music’s most ADD-friendly genre.
In fact, the NY powerhouse band don’t even make with the fast stuff for a full 18 minutes, finally bringing us up to speed on “Simple Math”. From there on out, grind fiends will get what they came for. You’ve got your oddly groovy tunes (“Butcher” and “Celebratory Gunfire”), your sequel to Extreme Conditions Demand Extreme Responses‘ “Anti-Homophobe” in posi-grind anthem “Fuck Cancer”, and a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it “You Suffer” homage called “Trash”. In other words, a generous collection of clashing songs. Brutal Truth stay as lovingly disorienting as always, with some cleaner production to make sense of Burke’s squealing guitar psychosis. On one-two punch “All Work and No Play” and “Addicted”, he switches from piercing squalls to linear tremolo like it’s a circuit on his rig. It takes true talent to make this stuff sound natural.
Brutal Truth, natural? I mean, we all know they enjoy “plant life,” but End Time is actually, you know, sequenced, though it takes some listens to make sense of it all. With Kevin Sharp’s barking as incomprehensible as always, the instrumentalists are charged with presenting the album’s theme, which pretty much stays in line with BT’s general attitude of “the world is in chaos and we laugh as it burns”. Or you can “Drink Up”, as the final song instructs. It’s a long apocalypse, after all. Why not party a bit while we’re waiting?
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BUY END TIME
Relapse (CD)
Relapse (Blue LP)
Relapse (Black LP)
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