Click to listen to Bad Brains' 'Into the Future'

It's been five years since Bad Brains' last release, Build a Nation, but the pioneering hardcore band proves that it hasn't lost a step on "Into the Future." The title track from their new album is a song about the future, but it's connected to the group's past: roiling guitar spills over a pounding beat while vocalist H.R. drawls out the lyrics with sneering menace. "My vocalizing strengthens the impact of the group's overall deliverance of the music, and the expression of the church of music," the singer tells Rolling Stone. "The new album wouldn't be an A-plus new album if it hadn't been for the earlier music, which was equally as inspirational. And it gets better and better."

The band took its time with Into the Future, due November 20th and produced by the four musicians: H.R., Dr. Know, Darryl Jenifer and Earl Hudson. "Sometimes we bicker and deliberate amongst ourselves, and we pick out, you know, little human qualities... but it's ultimately of no concern because we have a keen sense of awareness, can push our emotions aside and get to the nitty-gritty of the sound and perform – and that's what counts. To rise above all of that: that's what the Brains can do," says H.R.

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