Top 5 Genre Defining Grindcore Albums

REYKJAVÍK'S ONLY DEATH METAL TAXI DRIVER PICK'S 'EM

Listen to these classics. Revisit them. Put them into context. Fight or pet Bogi (the list's curator) in the comment section. See you there!

5. Napalm Death: Scum (’87)
The god damned corner stone of the genre. Granted, the album sucks a giant set of donkey balls- with its horrible style and awful execution- but you’ve got to give credit where credit is due.


4. Nasum: Human 2.0 (’00)
After a string of shorter releases and the massive, groundbreaking, debut that was Inhale/Exhale, Nasum hit the nail straight on the dreadlocked head with their sophomore, genre defining effort- Human 2.0. Arguably the high point of their tragic career, this album married technicality with a crunchy and crushing heaviness that was not at all marred by the mindboggling precision achieved at constant break neck speed. Truly an album for the ages.

3. Brutal Truth: Need to Control ('94)
Most would argue that Brutal Truth’s crowning achievement was the utterly face fucking melee of nut-grinding madness that is their ’96 album “Sounds of the Animal Kingdom”, and they might be right about that. But just as Gorguts’s ’98 masterpiece, “Obscura”, it is far better in theory and hindsight than in practice. The BT album that leaves the most lasting impression is, however, “Need to Control”. Already thinking way outside the ragged grindcore box, Brutal Truth wrote an album that strays in more directions than splinter bomb shrapnel and lures the listener into a new musical dimension full of avant-garde aural wonders and never before performed feats of compositional ingenuity.


2. Discordance Axis: The Inalienable Dreamless (’00)
When IMNs get into pissing contests over naming what, in their opinion, is the most technical metal album ever released, this gem of an album is usually tragically overlooked. “The Inalienable Dreamless” may well be the purest grindcore record ever released, as it bears no hint whatsoever of any other genre of metal, but instead plugs away at relentlessly terrifying clip, to the point that the listener becomes almost immune to the frankly ridiculous average speed and the astounding intricacies of the godlike riffing. Give this shit a spin and get back to me when you finish piecing your jaw back together.


1. Pig Destroyer: Prowler in the Yard ('01)
After a few false starts, the grindcore dignitaries in Pig Destroyer returned with their first proper full length, and proceeded to set the ground rules to what constitutes a truly great grindcore album. “Prowler in the Yard” mixes a wide variety of styles, genres and influences and delivers the world’s finest grindcore recording to date- all wrapped up in the beautifully abstract verbiage of master wordsmith J.R Hayes, who never met a subject he couldn’t raze or praise with the turn of a phrase.
-  - Bogi Bjarnason

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