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Disclose was a band that will probably be remembered more for their fetishizing of aesthetic and sound than any tunes they actually wrote. They really defined the modern noize-beat style along with Gloom and others that so many misguided myspace crusters try to emulate now. Their records celebrated genre conventions and the way they could define a band. Each new release (and there were more than I care to count) took influences from spikey jacket message heavy hardcore/punk that came from the UK, Sweden, Finland, Brazil, Japan, and then shot it through the meat grinder of founding member Kawakami’s hellish guitar sound and growled vocals.Someone, like maybe Stuart Schrader, could write a term paper on what Disclose means in the grand scheme of punk, the way their releases were in a way DISposable… the way they were paying tribute to the most minute details but at the same time putting their own stamp on everything… it might be post modern. Like Quentin Tarantino. But I’m not totally qualified for that kind of a write up, and that’s okay.Whatever the relative ups and downs of the Disclose legacy, Nightmare or Reality to me is their most essential release, or at least the best introduction to them. Mainly because it’s extremely high energy and heavy. There’s good song variety, that sizzling guitar sound, and pounding meaty drums. It opens with Fear of the Nuclear Age exactly like you expect, sounding structurally like an outtake from Why? but with a lot of added fuzz and Kawaikami’s very Japanese delivery. For a “rawpunk” band this record actually has a highly layered sound. There are at least 3 guitar tracks, possibly more, the drums are well recorded and not at all pots and pans sounding, the bass manages to actually have its own sound in the mix, and the solos are either double tracked, or played through an octave pedal. They manage to cut through in a very unique and somehow more over the top way than almost any other solos I’ve heard on this sort of record. Check out the solos after the break in Future Extinction. Sounds like it could be an octave pedal and doubled solos there. Wild stuff.Kawakami died in his sleep almost two years ago, and I know for a lot of people there’s still a gaping hole left in his absence.