ABERRANT EXTERMINATION IMPULSION - Grindcore Is Dead...Long Live Grindcore (Premiere & Review)

Written by: The Administrator

​In a manner misaligned with the genre's inherent brevity, I could happy wax poetic about the virtues of grindcore for hours. Days, even. In other words, prepare for a very long writeup.

Grindcore as a genre is intriguing on a wide variety of levels. There's the obvious draw of the music itself, which is the abrasive audio equivalent of having one's skin zested whilst simultaneously being run over by a brush hog. There's the political level--it is irrefutable that a radical left-wing and anti-fascist ethos inform the genre's birth and development. And there's the structural level, which is perhaps the most unique. Grindcore is brisk. It consistently challenges expectations of song structure, of album length. It executes ideas with a keen succinctness that I profoundly admire.

Needless to say, I'm always on the hunt for new grind and grind-adjacent music. Which is how, at the top of this year, I found myself listening to Annihilate, the second album from Matthew Brammer's Aberrant Extermination Impulsion. It was the project's second release within like 10 days, and fourth release within a month. I was extremely impressed, both by the sonic environment and the production rate. Aberrant Extermination Impulsion's penchant for finding the oh-so-sweet spot between bristling aggression and concise-yet-pulverizing songcraft was exciting. The project was also vocally anti-fascist, anti-MAGA, and anti-cop, which is always a plus.

Indeed, before you press play, one thing is apparent: Aberrant Extermination Impulsion embodies a refreshing outspoken conviction. Matthew is ACAB all day, as evidenced by, y'know, the existence of a track entitled "ACAB." It is always cathartic to hear music that reflects how fucked up everything is, and even more so than previous releases, this album is pissed off. It calls a spade a spade, and it certainly doesn't hide behind apoliticality. "Support Your Local Copkiller" is unambiguous. "Kirkified" is straight to the point. "An Alarming Number of People Have Normalized the Taste of Leather" leaves zero room for interpretation. In a sociopolitical climate where the messaging of the status quo is perpetually disconnected from the reality we are experiencing, it is rousing to witness an inequivocabile Fuck You.

Anyways, lets cut the chatter and get to the music, shall we? I'm pleased to premiere below in its entirety Grindcore Is Dead...Long Live Grindcore, the new album from Aberrant Extermination Impulsion. It will be officially released this Friday, March 13th, but you can listen to it (on repeat, preferably) via the embed conveniently lurking below. As always, we'll meet you on the other side!

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If you typically enjoy grindcore on the more slamming and brutal end of the spectrum, you might find yourself a tad stunned by how dynamic some old-school riff-centric grind can be. The riffs here are lively and vivacious, and the album in general makes you want to get up and move around. It supplies venerable oodles of high-octane neck-snappers. A bombastic punky energy is littered liberally throughout. There's a potent dose of gnarly death pugilisim--this whole project could easily fit within the deathgrind genre tag. I guarantee that every single track here contains at least one throat-grabbing riff that asserts itself and leaves you yearning for more. "Why must the song be so short!" you cry, but another monster of a riff has already taken its place. A strange catchiness permeates the project--I've found myself, on multiple occasions, nodding furiously to the memory of a riff that only appeared for a mere moment in the lifespan of a micro-song. If that's not a good indication of superb songcraft, I'm not sure what is. And we haven't even mentioned the vocals, which rip and snarl and gurgle and grind with an unmatched intensity. I can seldom decipher the lyrics and my gutturals are garbage, but I constantly feel a strong urge to sing alone. Again: superb songcraft. Great grindcore is often defined, in my opinion, by its stickiness, its hookiness, its ability to stick around after the song is over. This is great grindcore.

Grindcore Is Dead...Long Live Grindcore is perpetually lean 'n' mean, but it never feels sparse, if that makes any sense. It is almost entirely what I would classify as "breakneck," and yet plays with space and heft in a way that feels very deliberate. It's easy to think of raw grinding aggression as uncalculated, but it is very evident that much thought and consideration has been put into the interplay between tracks, and even within tracks themselves. "Shut It Down" is a great example--within a trim 1:30, we're treated to a growling intro, thick with menace, that erupts into pure roiling vitriol before easing into thunderous blastbeats and chunky groove that quickly evaporates into a droning outro. That's some compact and thrilling composition. And, to reiterate, we're only talking about one song. This album is twenty one tracks long. It's over in twenty two minutes. You do the math.
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So yeah. I (and you!) have no shortage of favorites to pick from. I really enjoy the bombastic intro "Lead Poisoning," which has an odd catchiness that builds after repeat listens. It feels like it references a variety of universal motifs--there's something so familiar in particular about the cadence of the vocals. A few tracks later, we're treated to the furious one-two punch of the barn-burning "250," which features the kind of meaty grooves that you want to throw your entire skeleton into, and the following "Miscreant," which is simply fun as hell. This track truly cranks the energy to the boiling point. It fires things off with an excitable riff that feels ripped from an alternate universe where thrash, rather than slamming brutality, informs the grindcore zeitgeist (if, uhhhh, such a thing exists.) And then "Kirkified" is punky and profoundly badass. It's a song designed to make you move, and it is over far too quickly. Which, arguably, means it is the perfect length. Later, "Inflammatory" feels like the heart-pounding final moments of a bossfight--it legitimately gets me hyped and primed to throw fists, and is over in 40 seconds. Perfection, frankly. And the penultimate "Paradox, Oh Paradox, Tolerant No More" somehow finds a whole 'nother level of blunt force that juxtaposes nicely with the closing "An Alarming Number of People Have Normalized the Taste of Leather," which feels like a reaffirmation of the album's central thesis, both sonically and thematically. But! At the end of the day, Grindcore Is Dead...Long Live Grindcore is not a listening experience that merits from discussing tracks on isolation. If you're listening to one track, you best be listening to 'em all. The diversity of sounds represented here makes it a thoroughly engaging listen.
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Aberrant Extermination Impulsion has released a lot of music as of late, full stop. Three albums this year alone is nothing to scoff at, particularly when considered in the context of multiple releases crammed into the last few days of 2025. When faced with a display of prolific songwriting, I'm always tempted to wonder when inspiration will evaporate, when the vein will run dry. Not today, apparently. Grindcore Is Dead...Long Live Grindcore confirms that Aberrant Extermination Impulsion is as fresh and energetic as day one. I'm also very willing to assert that this is Matthew's best work under this moniker to date by a significant margin, which was frankly surprising how much I have loved (and hyped) previous releases. 

My lack of brevity is unbecoming; I'll wrap it up here. If this sounds enjoyable, and/or if you have enjoyed the embed, hit that preorder over on Ampwall. I also highly recommend checking out the entire Aberrant Extermination Impulsion discography. It is well worth the very small time commitment, and it's quite invigorating to see the sonic development play out in near-real time. Good stuff. 'Nuff said.

Aberrant Extermination Impulsion - Grindcore Is Dead...Long Live Grindcore will be independently released March 13th, 2026. Find it here.

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Aberrant Extermination Impulsion is on Ampwall and Bluesky