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I love C.I.A.’s - God Guts Guns 7″. I love it so much, that I would say it’s probably my favorite record from Connecticut ever, except for maybe the first Youth of Today record, (and a big influence on my guitar playing and songwriting). It’s close though. God Guts Guns is, as far as I can tell, perfect tuneful early 80’s hardcore. It’s everything I love about early Minor Threat, 7 Seconds,  Scream, Articles Of Faith, Husker Du, and as good as any of them honestly. I hate to pull the “if they were from” card, but seriously, if this record had come out of DC, everyone would know it.

The record opens up with a quick 5-second burst called Who Cares that’s not much more than one chord and a couple drum hits, at which point the real show begins with the song Death. Death sets the tone for where the rest of the record goes, speedy, tuneful guitar lines that ascend and descend scales a couple times each measure, good clean shouts, and ripping loose rock solos. The solos tend to start as scrappy rock n roll leads but at some point they collapse into a mess of hardcore squeals. Actually if you slowed the tempo a bit the songs could easily fit as KBD-style proto hardcore which is maybe what keeps them sounding so catchy. Actually they sound like a slightly less Rock n’ Roll version of The Worst at their normal speed if that makes much sense.

My favorite C.I.A. song is Commie Control, which has a great call-response style verse that is built around a fast succession of snare rolls, before breaking into a steady hardcore beat. The best part is the middle section which is kind of a melodic, slow motion skank part. I don’t know exactly how to describe it, but it just sounds great in the middle of the song before breaking back into the main riff.

Cash-wise these things have been gaining in ebay price over the past couple years, and I yearn for the days when they were going for much less. Regardless it couldn’t happen to a more deserving release, and it’s been booted a couple times, released on a semi-legit cd on lost and found once, and will sooner or later get the shitty GTA treatment (bad artwork, dumb title, and probably padded out with a few practice tapes no one needed to hear). Regardless if you look around you can find the songs easily, and if you want to own one like this one,  make sure it’s the 6 track version on Shmegma and it has a folding sleeve. FYI they also have a s/t lp which isn’t as furious but is still alright, and songs on the Nice and Loud, Connecticut Fun, and Die Jerry Die comps.