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It might be forgivable if you’re not familiar with New Jersey’s Chronic Sick. They were unpopular in their day, panned by most reviewers as reactionary, and their records were pressed in minuscule quantities on the hard-to-come-by Mutha Records. That said they’re one of the most consistently beloved “Killed By Death” type hardcore bands, or as it’s now okay to term bands like this, “Killed By Hardcore”. A perfect example of a band no one cared about when they were around, but now considered to outclass many of the more popular bands of the day from anywhere in the world.

Chronic Sick eschew the typical expectations for a cult/unknown hardcore band as they’re as tuneful, well rehearsed, and professionally recorded, as most of the big acts of the early 80’s in the United States. The sound of the music owes a heavy debt to DC bands like Scream, Marginal Man, Double O, and at least in some ways predicts some of the chorus drenched guitar work Dag Nasty delivered a couple years later. Before anyone protests (and I know you will), this is hardly the self-conscious emotive, good-time core that all of those bands are, at least in part known for, (no disrespect to the godly Scream). Rather the lyrics and vocals come at you with plenty of snot and bile, hardly sticking to safe topics (as the middle finger on the picture sleeve should let you know), and keeping things firmly hardcore even in during fairly poppy guitar lines. On this record, which there’s probably 500 or less of, (probably way less when you account for 20-some years of record collections thrown in the trash by New Jersey moms), they take the time to attack “Reagan Bands”, lament the transmission of venereal diseases (Crotch Rot), and I’m not sure what the third song (Blood Type-X) is about, but as the MRR review of the time noted, it might be better that way.

Like yesterday’s Death Wish entry, Chronic Sick aren’t just good for a “rare record band”, they’re just good. They may have been reactionary townie losers, but they were a good hardcore band first. It’s really kind of a shock no one has been able to negotiate a legitimate reissue of their output, and maybe even more shocking that it hasn’t been bootlegged (although let’s face it, it’s only a matter of time til some eastern European schmuck takes care of that, unfortunately it will probably made off shit MP3’s and pixelated JPG’s).

Worth noting, there’s a Send Help 7″, also on Mutha Records, for sale by the same person. One of the better and more hardcore releases on the label after Chronic Sick & The Worst.