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Battalion Of Saints - “Second Coming” lp

Here’s a platter of crucial early 80’s San Diego punk. Similar to a lot of other big USHC bands from this time period but distinguished by the batshit crazy vocal attack of George Anthony, who comes shrieking like a coked up maniac (probably was) on the opener, My Mind’s Diseased. It’s probably the best track on the album, and it’s surely his best cut vocally, but let that not diminish your view of the rest of this rock solid classic. If you care for the likes of Government Warning or Direct Control these days, you ought to know this one, because it’s basically the template for what they’ve been doing (hardcorepunkmetal). Yes the music has a bit of heavy metal color to it, but with a limited amount of technical prowess, esepecially from the drummer who often employs the well liked “D-Beat”. Actually this lp is a lot like what the post Discharge band Broken Bones really ended up sounding like. Only I happen to think this is a bit more ripping and rocked out. Less stiff, you know?

Holy Vision has some cool shredding and soloing from guitarist Chris Smith (not the same as Integrity/Inmates/Keelhaul member Chris Smith), dipping between the flashy showoff heavy metal side, and the string grating random noise hardcore side. No More Lies opens with the riff from (I think) some early Motorhead song, before busting into another call response style hardcore attack that should fill your meat and potatoes fix quite well. Actually a lot of the songs kind of combine the speed and thickness of classic Motorhead, with the kind of American beach punk feel of The Adolecents and all that. The album even closes with a fairly good cover of Motorhead’s “Ace Of Spades”, and I don’t take Motorhead covers lightly.

The cover is some awesome Mad Marc Rude work with the classic “skeletons emerging from the ruins” theme, found on so many good punk and metal lps.