This is grindcore in its element, capturing Wormrot’s original lineup live in TNT studios for just under 20 minutes with no edits and no overdubs, and it’s everything you want from a grindcore trio. Guitar, drums, vocals, and nothing else, with the precision and intensity of Pig Destroyer and the unpredictability of Napalm Death, with the clarity of a live mix that lets you feel what this genre is capable of when done right. What makes Wormrot such a top-tier grind band, arguably among the best in the world, is how they weaponise unpredictability. This isn’t just blast-beat endurance. Instead, the music lurches violently from d-beat punk to groove metal to absolute noise freakouts and back again. Opener Sledgehammer is like a Formula One car pulling away, each repeat accelerating tighter and faster, and Wormrot do the stop-start better than anyone, cutting to silence and letting a single vocal bark hang in the air for a quarter of a second before slamming back in. It’s masterful.

Buried the Sun gives a moment of breathing room, tumbling and swaggering letting Arif’s vocals stretch out in all their vomitous glory, sounding like he’s throwing up half the time. TNT feels like a defiant victory lap. You can feel the chemistry between them, the sheer tightness and intuition that only comes from doing this at a high level for years, because how do you even remember how to play this stuff? It’s exhausting, but it’s also fun, remaining violent and brutal without ever getting bogged down in bleakness. And while it’ll thrill longtime fans, bands like Knocked Loose are breaking through on the back of unpredictable grooves and whiplash turns, and it’s clear how deeps Wormrot’s original influence runs. Grindcore, metalcore, hardcore, TNT makes a strong case for how little genre classifications matter. This is grindcore, but it sounds as current and dangerous as anything from the modern hardcore wave.