Sounds of the Animal Kingdom / Kill Trend Suicide

Forget about the majority of bands you may think are "heavy" on the latest episode of Headbanger's Ball. Few bands in the history of metal have pushed the genre to extremes as ferociously and intensely as New York's Brutal Truth did during their nine-year career. Although Brutal Truth have been defunct since 1999, their last label, Relapse, dusted off their last two studio releases, 1996's Kill Trend Suicide and 1997's Sounds of the Animal Kingdom, and issued them as a two-for-one deal in 2006. The perfect soundtrack for a roller coaster ride gone horribly wrong, these two releases are as over the top today as they were a decade earlier. While the quartet is rightfully often considered one of grindcore's main trailblazers (few bands sounded like Brutal Truth in 1992 — a time when every metal act seemingly endured a "grunge makeover"), something that often gets lost is that the gentlemen certainly could play their instruments. You don't have to be a prog rock connoisseur to hear that such tracks as "Jemenez Cricket" would prove quite a challenge to play along to. Here are 30 tunes of supremely sweet musical pleasure.