Brutal Blues – BB (Review)

Brutal Blues are a Norwegian grindcore band and this is their debut album.

I have been looking forward to hearing some more material from this band ever since 2014’s self-titled EP was unleashed. It seems like it’s been a long wait, and it has, I suppose.

Has it been worth it? Simply stated; yes it has. At least, if you’re a glutton for aural punishment.

Brutal Blues have provided us with 23 minutes of modern grindcore, full of creative brutality and disruptive aggression. Brutal Blues are not your standard grind band though, and the intervening years between releases has only solidified this. The band have developed their individual and peculiar brand of extremity even further, and BB is nothing if not charismatic and full of personality, albeit of the unfriendly and unpleasant varieties.

Yes, take the previous statement within the present context – this is not easy listening in any way, shape, or form. This is raw and nasty stuff, with so many twists and turns you’ll get lost, disoriented, and savagely beaten by BB’s labyrinthine brutality. Listening to Brutal Blues is like listening to Discordance Axis at their most wonderfully chaotic and unhinged, only now imagine that you were pushed down a set of stairs while you were doing so.

BB is like getting sucked into a maelstrom of destructive mayhem. The music mixes modern brutality with electronic enhancement, mathcore/noisecore craziness, and jazz-like experimentation. To mention Discordance Axis once more; imagine a mix of them, Atomsmasher, Association Area, Full of Hell, Genghis Tron, Bedwetter, Luddite Clone, and elements of The Dillinger Escape Plan’s early years, and you’ll have a rough idea of what BB sounds like. Well, you will if you then crush everything down to a raw, abrasive, spiky finish.

BB is a jagged and dangerous album. The music is insanity-made-flesh, and BB is not to be listened to by the uninitiated, as its numbing assault will surely drive them insensate.

Listen to this, and lose your mind.