Speed Is Worship: Notes on Grind and Powerviolence in 2026

Grindcore and powerviolence have a classic problem: they're the hardest genres to write about. How do you explain a 48-second song in 500 words? But this year brought enough releases to make me want to try. Not full reviews, think of this as margin notes from someone who still believes the best song is the one that's over before you notice it started.

Start with the most talked-about. Nails, the California outfit led by Todd Jones, released a two-song single, "Fear Based Life" and "Dollar Bin Generation", on September 2 through Closed Casket Activities. If you know Nails, you know what you're getting: guitars that sound like a chainsaw with no brakes, drums that leave no room to breathe, and vocals furious at everything. These two songs don't offer a sonic revolution, and they don't need to. What's interesting is the titles. "Fear Based Life", a life built on fear, and "Dollar Bin Generation", the bargain-bin generation. Both phrases feel very 2026. A generation raised on anxiety, gig work, and the sense of being valued cheaply. Nails have always been good at compressing rage into three to five words you could paint on the back of a jacket.

Then there's Exhumed, the veteran goregrind band from California, with Red Asphalt, released February 20. If Nails are pure rage, Exhumed are dark humor served at high speed. They've long played with the aesthetics of gore films and hospitals, and this time the theme shifts to the highway: crashes, red asphalt, and everything that usually makes you slow down on the freeway to look. The thrash riffs are still sharp, and there's a kind of childish glee on this album like a kid who just found their first gore film. Grind doesn't always have to be grim.

Third, for those who like digging up bands that aren't big yet: Snarler from California put out Blast Rash on No Time Records in early October. Fifteen powerviolence tracks, most of them gone before you've finished reading the song titles. It's the kind of release best heard on a motorbike stuck in traffic, because somehow the stress suddenly gets a soundtrack.

Why put these three bands together? Because they show three faces of fast music today. Nails stand for anger that's polished and efficient. Exhumed stand for tradition and humor, an older generation still having fun. Snarler stand for DIY that doesn't care whether the recording is tidy as long as the message lands.

And make no mistake, our own scene has plenty of names playing in this territory. Local powerviolence and grind are alive at small gigs, on tapes and CD-Rs sold at merch tables, and on Bandcamp. Some bands just started, some have lasted more than a decade. We cover a few local releases from this year in a separate piece, but the point is the same: fast music always has a place in a country where everything is slow, from bureaucracy to the internet signal.

There's one reason grind stays relevant: grind is the most honest genre about time. It doesn't ask for 45 minutes of your attention. It asks for one minute, and in that minute it gives you everything. In an era when everyone complains about short attention spans, maybe grindcore found the answer back in the 80s.

Play them all in a row. The total running time is probably shorter than that podcast episode you never finished.