Brutal Youth – Stay Honest (Reissue)

Stay Honest was Brutal Youth‘s sophomore album and it was the follow up to their 2010 debut full length Spill Your Guts. I use the past tense as this is a reissue of the Canadian quartet’s 2013 album, and it sounds as fresh as it did three years ago. The first three tracks lull you into a false sense of security, they are three of the longest tracks on this album, one of them is almost two minutes long, after that it’s a head on plunge into raw and relentless punk rock.

At times it does suffer from the fact that if you stop paying attention some of the tracks can blur into each other, to give you an idea of just how frenetic this album is, whilst writing this line three tracks were played in their entirety. Ten of the tracks on Stay Honest are around one minute in length or less, in some cases a lot less, for example Trim The Fat is done and dusted in nineteen seconds, and the whole album, all eighteen tracks, clocks in at around twenty two minutes.

There are hallmarks of the bands that came before them, the often quoted influences are Kid Dynamite and The Circle Jerks but you can also hear the spirit of the likes of early DRI and NOFX, whilst they wear their influences on their sleeves Brutal Youth have certainly stamped their own identity onto Stay Honest. It is a frantic assault from start to end but there is enough melody present, and there are some excellent breakdowns on some of the longer tracks, which stop it becoming the relentless barrage that some hardcore records descend into. There is no rhyme or reason as to why I like some hardcore bands and not others, Brutal Youth falls firmly into the former category but don’t ask me why.

Stay Honest can be ordered for download or on limited edition mint chocolate chip vinyl directly from Say-10 Records here