bidhardcore.com
hardcore records on ebay — aggregated and examined
What’s to say when talking about the most important records in your life? When I was 17, I got my brain ripped out by Infest’s “Slave” lp, and when they picked it up off the floor and stuck it back in a bunch of the wires were crossed. After that it was a long chain of events that got me to here. Siege, Deep Wound, Drop Dead, Citizen’s Arrest, Voorhees, No Comment, Crossed Out, Negative FX. It was before everything was a click away on Soulseek, and so it took about a year of borrowing, and scouring to hear most of it, but I feel like Slave was the first time really thrashy brutal hardcore left a lasting effect on me.I’ve already kind of done an entry on this album, because I did an entry on the abridged version of it - the Machismo 7″. Slave is the same recording, but with 8 additional songs and was released in Europe on Off The Disk. It was Highly Collectible (™ B. Mastrobuono) and hard to get even when it was released, and now with the revived interest in this sort of hardcore, it’s become all the more valuable and high priced. I picked up most of my copies of this lp in the early 2000’s when interest was relatively low, although a couple years ago I paid an exorbitant amount for a pink vinyl copy of which there’s supposed to be less than 50. After that, the next rarest version is allegedly the one I’ve linked here, which is a different color on each side of the record. I’ve seen a few different variations, but this one is blue and sea foam looking. Who knows if the price will ever drop on this stuff again? Might as well pay up now, you couldn’t do it for a better album. Even the repress with alternate cover art is fetching some loot these days after all.
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.
Pushead had his fingers in the global hardcore scene from the get-go, and so it’s pretty logical that he released one of the earlier compilations that does a pretty good job of covering several different areas of the earth. This comp - Cleanse The Bacteria - in addition to that though, also has pretty much the limits of extremity covered for hardcore in that era. Power hits from the likes of Mob 47, Inferno, Civil Dissident, Corrosion Of Conformity, The Execute, and Pushead’s own band Septic Death. There’s also some 7 Seconds songs that are pretty good, but not extreme in any way. Oh and there’s a little band I happen to live very much by the name of Siege making their only vinyl appearance ever (excluding numerous reissues of their demo). The Siege songs on here are ragged, blasting proto-grindcore insanity. Probably the best music I know of to come from Boston in 1985 without any doubt. For the inclusion of that material I consider this comp particularly indispensable. The Pusman was one of the few who actually got how earth shaking what Siege was doing was - and the tracks actually sound best on the actual comp as opposed to numerous reissues where they’re EQ’d to sound more seamless with Siege’s demo tracks. Aside from my personal bias, and interests, just take a look at this tracklist:
Side 1.
7 Seconds: Regress No Way, We’re Gonna Fight
Civil Dissident: 20th Century Holocaust Pt. II, Death for a Buzz
Instigators: 53rd State, The Blood is on Your Hands, Free(You’re Not)
Siege: Sad But True, Cold War, Walls
Corrosion of Conformity: Kiss of Death
Crude SS: Nazi Go home, Sprang Alla Komunhus
Akutt Innleggelse: Tenk Na!
The Execute: Slash(Live)Side 2.
Part 1: Black Mass
Poison Idea: Typical, Die on your Knees
Genocide Express: Genocide Express, Factory
Inferno: Wir Sind Schon Tot, Freited
Mob 47: Fred & Rattuisa, Sjuk Varid, Nedrusta Nu, Snuten Styr
Septic Death: Terrorain, Change
Enola Gay: Grav Et Kul, Enola Gay
Holy Dolls: Beast of the Apocalypse
Zyklome A: People Die, Angry Face
Extrem: Nazi Raus
Anyway this copy is a blue vinyl edition which is relatively hard to come by. There’s also some on orange vinyl that include a poster and a bonus 12″ of out takes - good luck grabbing that. I’m not gonna break this down track by track, but pretty much every band that’s not Part1 (ugh) brings something good to the table.
What’s to say about Agnostic Front “Victim In Pain”? It’s probably the best New York Hardcore record ever. It may be the best American Hardcore record ever. It’s definitely one of the most universal in the entire genre. No matter what micro-division of Hardcore/Punk/whatever you’re into, if you have even half a clue you dig Victim In Pain. It’s maddeningly perfect. AF never sounded like this again, before or after, and I’ve dug through live sets of the day and rehearsal tapes just trying to hear a few more minutes of the level of brilliance seen on this 12″. There are 2 comp tracks on Urinal Records “Message To America” comp that come close (one a re-record from their 1st 7″, the other got added to their subsequent lp), and an ‘84 studio rehearsal (I believe for their tour with Crucifix) that isn’t far off either. Still the fact remains this album stands alone.
If you were someone who’d never heard hardcore music before, and I only had 15 minutes to give you a basic idea that could approximate the entire genre, I’d just play you Victim In Pain. It’s hard, it’s tuneful, it’s rough, it’s anthemic - it’s everything. When I talk to people who are interested in playing drums or guitar in a hardcore band I suggest learning to play Victim in Pain straight through. It has only a few different drum beats overall, each one relatively simple and economical, but you should be able to do basically anything you want with them with a little ingenuity. The bass and guitar take a similarly simple approach but they surge with energy and nearly every riff sticks in your mind thereafter. Basically it’s all the proof you need that skill is secondary to a good riff and an energetic delivery. But let us not forget the recording, which is the perfect template for any band worth hearing. Tight snappy drums with a natural sound, no funky effects no wild reverb, just power hits. Guitars that sound like buzz saws but are bright and defined. Vocals front and center, no effects, no studio magic, just balls out yelling. Best of all, peanut-butter-thick bass with the fuzz up to 10 and the tone knob down to zero. The antithesis of the over polished, twangy, thin ”Sans-Amp” bass sound popular in “modern hardcore” (you know the shit I mean). I challenge you to find a better hardcore compass. I absolutely guarantee this album CANNOT lead you astray. It’s fucking impossible.
The tracklist might as well be a greatest hits list. Victim In Pain the song is probably the most recognized AF song ever, but Last Warning, Your Mistake, and Power could all compete for that title, and all are featured on here. I’d go so far as to say this is one of very few hardcore full lengths were probably every song has been covered by a band at some time. Speaking personally I’ve performed no less than 6 (out of 11) of these tracks in tribute to the perfection found in the grooves of this slab.
The original pressing was run twice on Ratcage Records with a gatefold sleeve. The second pressing has an Important Records Distribution logo added to the back cover. Later it was licensed to Combat records but the violent cover art was removed in favor of an all black cover.
Doug Moody. Oh Doug Moody… The Roger Corman of American Hardcore. On the wikipedia entry for Mystic Records you’ll find the following information:
Mystic was founded by Doug Moody who wanted it to be a platform for America’s youth to voice their opinions musically. The label attracted Hardcore Thrash and Speed Metal (a term Moody is credited with coining) bands. In its heyday (between 1983 and 1985), Mystic released over 100 different records with several hundred artists. Moody was assisted in his efforts by Philco Raves (who assisted in recording and production) Bill Karras (sales and distribution) and Mark Wilkins aka Mystic Mark, (Record and Tour Promotion)…
There’s no doubt this was written by one of the people it mentions, but it’s at least somewhat informational. Now way back a while ago I’d heard Doug had a career in the recording industry prior to Mystic, and after some internet clicks, I found a record of that on this blog: Selections From The Punk Vault. If you scroll to the bottom and read through the comments you can see Moody and a couple of his associates chime in and give the full picture of how the Mystic empire came to be. I’m not going to excerpt it at length here, but suffice it to say, the dude was in the music industry working with everything, from Classical, to Gospel, to Doo-Wop, it’s insane that for some of us he’s most known not for the dozens of Gold records of 50’s and 60’s artists that he A&R’d, but for releasing records like this comp: We Got Power.
In practice this is probably the best Mystic compilation and, in the classic Mystic style it’s seriously filled to the edge of the record with songs; 40 to be exact. One big difference is that it’s got a lot more “big names” than most other releases on Mystic. As explained through the comments in the above link, the folks at Mystic did not start a punk label because they were a part of the scene, they were just looking for a niche. When you look back at the insanely large 80’s Mystic Catalog it becomes obvious that it was just about producing a product quick and cheap for basically, any hardcore band (so it seems). The same way Roger Corman was basically just throwing together whatever he could on a limited budget looking for a returned. Quality and ability generally don’t seem to be concerns once you start to sample the Mystic back catalog. It’s like a hardcore junksale. If you wanna get down on your hands and knees you might find something cool, but it ain’t gonna be much. Still it’s hard to argue with this particular tracklist:
1. THE AUTHORITIES “I Hate Cops” / 2. THE NIP DRIVERS “Tang” / 3. JFA “Middle America” / 4. DR. KNOW “Savior” / 5.WHITE FLAG “Celabate” / 6. WHITE CROSS “Nuke Attack” / 7. FUCK-UPS “Bacon and Eggs” / 8. PUTRID GIRLS “1 2 3 4″ / 9. ILL REPUTE “Count the Odds” / 10. STALAG 13 “Selfish” / 11. REBEL TRUTH “Monkey’s Paw” / 12. WILLFUL NEGLECT “E.M.S. & D.” / 13. TAR BABIES “Confused” / 14. MECHT MENSCH “Might Makes Right” / 15. GRAVEN IMAGE “My World” / 16. THE VACANT “Caught by the Mafia” / 17. ADRENALIN OD “World War 4″ / 18. THE CLONES “Conform to the Norm” / 19. THE BIG BOYS “Brick Walls” / 20. SIN 34 “Not” / 21. MINUTEMEN “Party With Me Punker” / 22. DAYGLO ABORTIONS “Scared of people” / 23. CAUSTIC CAUSE “Look to the Left” / 24. DON’T NO “Blind Ambition” / 25. S.V.D.B. “Flames of Hell” / 26. PATRIOTS “Cavity” / 27. HATED PRINCIPLES “Survival At All Costs” / 28. CRANKSHAFT “New Wave Homos” / 29. URBAN ASSAULT (S.F.) “Night on the Town” / 30.URBAN ASSULT (Tahoe) “Rock’n'Roll Burnout” / 31. 7 SECONDS “Wasted Life Ain’t No Crime” / 32. JACK SHIT “Follow the Leader” / 33. ATHEISTS “Music I Can’t Stand” / 34. ROMULANS “Judgement Day” / 35. NO LABELS “Ego” / 36. ARMED RESPONSE “Too Gross for Comfort” / 37. DERANGED DICTION “Crooning” / 38. FALSE CONFESSION / 39. MANIMALS “Things Under My Bed” / 40. RED CROSS “Pseudo Intellectual”
Note - if you’re a little uptight about your hardcore, and don’t wanna get kinda touchy feely, DO NOT READ THIS POST. Instead, look at this: CLICK
Some of the most intense and difficult conversations I’ve had about punk and hardcore and other signifiers like “post” and “emo” have stemmed from Moss Icon. They were a great band in their day. I know because they have one of the telling marks of great bands: that all of their imitators horribly SUCK. It’s not that you can never imitate great bands. The number of wonderful Discharge or Minor Threat imitations that the years have given us aer numerous, and plentiful. But sometimes there are bands that no matter how many people attempt to liberally borrow from them, are always done no justice by the gesture.
Case In Point = Moss Icon. This is probably one of the first bands that you could classify as “emo-core”, they have a lot of sonic similarities to groups like Rites Of Spring & Ignition, later Articles Of Faith even. They grew up and entered the scene in Annapolis Maryland, near Washington DC, but removed far enough that at best you could call it a satellite. Annapolis is a weird town I visited a few times growing up. It’s home to the Naval Academy, and by my personal recollection, numerous antique shops. There’s something positively isolated about the approach to their music and delivery, and I think it coresponds in some way to the fact that they were an Annapolis band. I can’t explain it but I sense it there. Maybe I only feel this way because I know more about the band and their location. In interviews members talk about their lack of interest in many of the DC bands. They liked Void, and Beefeater, but felt indifferent towards Embrace and Marginal Man.
One reason Moss Icon has proven so inimitable for this might be that vocalist John Vance was a perma-stoned literature/poetry freak, and while his stream of consciousness yell/talk/shout style was earnest, and has been imitated by boatloads of horrible “emo” and “screamo” bands, he seemed to have some place in an actual literary and philosophical tradition. I feel kind of stupid bringing this up because:
- Even though I write on this blog 5 days a week, I rarely read anything, and when I do, I prefer escapism.
- This is a Blog about hardcore, punk, trading records, stage dives, leather jackets… not college term papers.
However, I think that this is important to understanding why Moss Icon worked, and above all they were a good hardcore band on this record. Whereas your average band imitating this style of vocal basically delivered a high school/coffee house level poetry reading riddled with disjointed imagery about ex girlfriends and distant parents, Vance was able to evoke imagery of solitude and nature. He is probably one of the only singers I’ve ever heard that could effectively empathize with, ahem, The Plight of the Native American. He could also relate, brilliantly, feelings of suburban anomie, and anxiety like no other. He quoted Samuel Taylor Coleridge, a distinguished philosopher and poet whom I know nothing about.
In some ways Vance is an American/Americanized answer to Ian Curtis. It’s filtering the same kind of sentiments of disconnection and melancholy through a different but similar cultural starting point. As a band Moss Icon has similarities to Joy Division too. While they don’t particularly sound alike, and are coming from different moments in history there’s a connection, especially as Moss Icon developed an approach of dirging, echoy repetition in their career. The first real example of that comes on this record, with the song “I’m Back Sleeping Or Fucking Or Something”. As the bass drones on one riff and the drums skitter and bang behind it, Vance rants a semi abstract tale of childhood, painful and agonizing in his delivery. Guitarist Tonie Joy squalls feedback between massive power chords and has a pretty good sense of when to play and when to hang back. You know that pretentious ol’ “he knows what NOT to play”. It’s a panic attack with a drum beat maybe.
Elsewhere the record finds the band less chaotic, but just as effective. The other 3 songs, all have a more typically hardcore tempos and composition, but with more intricate guitar playing, which is why they often get compared to the Rites Of Spring lp, although Joy is adamant that he had not really listened to them at the time. Some of the influence then, can at least be pinned on their peers The Hated, who in turn were sort of what would happen if Husker Du weren’t popular nationally, and got really into Simon and Garfunkel. Back to Moss Icon though, what sets this apart and makes it superior from Rites Of Spring to me, is that there’s still the anger and frustration of Hardcore’s past noticeable in the music (at least at this stage of the Moss Icon catalog). Rites Of Spring spent so much of themselves trying to escape the machismo that they felt was “ruining the scene”, that I believe they lost a lot of the anger too.
Moss Icon eventually took a more reserved approach, but never lost any of their emotional complexity. This 7″ though, often referred to as “Gretta Garbo” for the photo on the cover of the early movie star, or as Hate In Me for the first song on it, is still my favorite. It’s a clash of sloppy hardcore anger, and subtle melody, hoarse screaming, and thoughtful poetry…or something. Look I just think if you ever feel like listening to “emo-core”, this record beats them all. A scant few have been able to tread the line like Moss Icon did. There’s only 500 copies of this record pressed on the band’s own Vermin Scum label, and I suspect it may go for a lower price (under $40) because it has a high starting bid. Usually these top out at $60.
Also I have to give some credit to Zac and Bobby Busch, as the observations in this post are at least partially inspired by a long Moss Icon thread we participated in on a message board.
I’ll try and post about something pertaining to skinheads tomorrow to make up for this.
While lesser bands of the day continue to increase in infamy, get bootlegged, and be sported on shitty looking tshirts by members of bands with names like Social Crisis, Negative Abuse, Ripping Group, Control Unit, etc., The Stains languish in semi-obscurity, known only to collectors and old men. Their s/t 12″ is one of the best examples of why SST is simultaneously the greatest and shittiest label of all time. While new Mojack and Zoogz Rift CDs are still appearing on a weekly basis, Mr. Ginn has records like this deleted from his catalog (to say nothing of The Dicks - Kill From the Heart, and the undoubtedly massive archive of unreleased Black Flag).
The Stains 12″ is one of the earliest recordings of meat and potatoes USHC, created in ‘81, although the band was started allegedly as early as 1976, the album didn’t actually see release until 1983. What a bummer for the band, (they broke up shortly after). You can still taste some of the heavy metal and rock influences that the members would have obviously drawn from, coming up in the original LA Hardcore scene. It’s not that far off a band like The Fix who were making similar sounds during this time, despite no close proximity to The Stains. I gotta mention that for an album recorded by Spot this one has a great sound. Crunchy thick guitar (much thicker than usual), solid drums, and vocals that are, for once, not 10x too loud in the mix. Maybe the fact that personalities like Greg Ginn or Bob Mould weren’t flexing their egos all over the process is the reason this record actually sounds good. I think these guys might have some connection to Overkill L.A. (another great lost SST band), but I’m not entirely certain.
“Mixed Nuts Don’t Crack”, is a really cool, lesser known DCHC compilation dating from 82/83 on Outside records. I think that label was run by people from Nuclear Crayons who are on this compilation, and have 2 other records on Outside. I guess a lot of the bands on here went to one High School, Bethesda Chevy Chase High (or so say those who were around at the time).
The most important thing on this comp in my view, are the United Mutation tracks culled from an ‘82 demo session. All 4 are just thrashing guttural insanity, maybe their most out of control offerings ever in terms of speed and rage. The vocals deliver totally unintelligible nihilism and anger, the music shreds along, occasionally falling apart into an echo’d mess. These tracks are as essential as the deconstructed genius of Void’s Flex Your Head tracks.
Following United Mutation (who are actually on side 2), are Nuclear Crayons, who are at their noisiest on this release, giving a decent approximation of Teenage Jesus and the Jerks. I’m not sure how necessary this stuff is really, but it’s kind of cool someone was at least trying it in DC in the early 80’s, I’d imagine they pissed off a lot of punks.
Hate From Ignorance unremarkable closes out this half of the record. Sort of melodic and angular, honestly it’s hard to remember I skip their tracks most of the time. Also-ran status.
Side 1 takes off with the little known Media Disease who played competent, though not particularly distinguished thrashing hardcore. These guys were tight with United Mutation and some of them went on to play with Malefice. They totally should have had a single on DSI although they’re not as psychotic sounding as any of the other bands, they were a Fairfax band. “Redneck Asshole” is a classic 20 second blast of hate. Media Disease knock out 6 songs in probably 4 or 5 minutes on here. These songs and a demo tape were comped on a bootleg double 7″ on Lost and Found in the early 90’s that’s semi cool if you can pick it up for $10>.
Chalk Circle comes next. I’m pretty sure this was an all female band, they play sort of mellow post punk/wave tracks. It’s not particularly interesting and I think my ears are less forgiving because it can’t even make up for that with out and out abrasiveness. What can you do?
Finishing out Side 1 is a cool band basically no one knows about: Social Suicide. I’m pretty sure the drummer from Youth Brigade DC (Danny Ingram) was in this band. I’ve been trying to find out if they have any recordings besides these songs, because they’re totally great, sounding like a junior Scream. The last song is kinda ska-vibed which is definitely a Scream move to pull, but the first 3 songs are just raging tuneful hardcore punk. First tier kind of stuff, not throw away junk. Really interested in hearing more by this band if anyone knows of anything.
The jacket on this record is extra nice, with a cool tip-on style (like old rock lps), and a black on silver color scheme. There’s 2 inserts, 1 is a lyric book, the other is collages/photos for each band, and contact info. If you ever see a sealed copy, it doesn’t have the inserts in it, the people at outside had to unseal them and put that stuff in.
Let me put it to you like this: I don’t care how uncool Victory records is (extremely), I don’t care about the controversy that has always surrounded the band (plenty), or the horrible tours with horrible bands they went on (Strife I think?). I don’t care about the crappy 90’s looking cover art (eww), I don’t care about the section of their fans that are basketball jersey wearing, plugs in the earlobe douchebags… I don’t care about any of that. The bottom line is Systems Overload will crush you. Every time. This is one of the most brilliant and inspired pieces of “extreme music” ever recorded. Think what you want. I know there’s people too uptight to really sit down with Integrity and give them an honest listen. I know there’s some who don’t go past their first album because it’s not on the worst label of all time, and because of the rule in HC that “first albums always the best”. I’m confident this is the best Integrity album though. It outshines all their previous efforts by leaps and bounds, it set the bar for their next 2 almost as perfect releases, and it should make the pale imitation of the band that has been around since 1998 (’99?) in various forms, downright ashamed.
Systems Overload blends a variety of hardcore, punk and metal sounds into a seamless whole. I know when I’m slipping into the banality of hyperbole, and I know it’s happening now, but there’s no other group that can borrow from the Cro-Mags, Discharge, Metallica, and Entombed (the “classic” releases only by those bands) and make it count like this. It’s a generic list of influences, but upon hearing the album it obviously makes sense. You take that driving British tempo and muscle, temper it through the “behind-the-beat” NYHC crunch, mix in sombre melodies and solos of Burton and Hetfield, and give it the dark horror vibe and deranged delivery of Left Hand Path. It’s amazing working off influences that cast shadows so big can work this well, but the 1-2-3 punch of Incarnate365/No One/Systems Overload ought to be all the proof you need. I don’t know how to explain the kind of power riff that opens Incarnate. It’s so basic and simple… almost triumphant sounding. When the song speeds up and the main verse takes over, guitarist Aaron Melnick lays down a wild run of Kirk Hammett inspired shredding that fights for supremacy with the growling screaming vocals. Everything is emphasized by the juicy drum sound, led by a saturated and booming bass drum (with double kicks used for maximum effectiveness), and a primal echoing “roomy” sound on the kit. No drum triggering in sight. Just “THUD CRACK BOOM”. With the bombast and in your face metal licks that dominate Incarnate, it’s a bit of a surprise that the next song, No One, is the most no frills hardcore song on the album. At only 45 seconds or so, there’s no time for finger tapping or even a proper breakdown. These 2 songs are a template for the majority of the rest of the album. A handful of the songs work to expand on the kind of meat and potatoes hardcore approach that No One takes, while the others juxtapose guitar acrobatics with slower moody sections and pseudo death metal crunch. A couple of songs, like Armanien Persectution and Salvations Malevolence also find the instrumental sections stretched out, and see diversions into ambient noise which both help to heighten the dark atmosphere as well as break for a couple minutes from the otherwise constant bludgeoning.
Systems Overload can never truly get the recognition I want it to have. It’s in every way superior to the plodding, dated sound and style of Integrity’s debut lp “Those Who Fear Tomorrow”, and recorded hundreds of times better. Unfortunately by 1995 Integrity had already eclipsed their achievements with their infamous reputation as trouble makers. They had problems touring because they couldn’t keep a steady lineup and were often getting in fights, and with the rising attitude of 80’s revivalism in hardcore, they were increasingly labeled as “just a metal band”/”not hardcore”/ too thuggish. The record was well recognized at the time, make no mistake, but even if it was superior, in hindsight it wasn’t the career maker that “Those Who Fear Tomorrow” was able to be, (due as much to time and place and attitudes about the band as the songs on it). But where Those Who Fear Tomorrow sounds so stuck in its time and place now, Systems could be a contemporary album, even though its roots are firmly in 80’s hc and metal. For me I think that’s why it endures.
The edition I’ve linked is on clear vinyl, it says 100 pressed, but my pressing info says 500. It’s still pretty hard to track down, so grab it if you can.
I like COC for a lot of reasons. One is that they have one of the all time coolest skull logos. But probably the number one reason is the Animosity lp. It’s kind of Crossover, but it’s still mostly Hardcore, and has been a standard in my rotation for years. It’s not your usual Crossover fair though, as the metal it crosses itself with seems to be more of the ominous doomy variety than your typical Metallica/Megadeth aping found on most “going metal” records of the 80s.
Side A opens with Loss For Words which begins with a roll across some roto-toms and a quick succession of palm muted 16th notes, immediately telling the listener this will be a progression from previous COC records. After some effective start-stop-start thrashing, the band drop into a heavy mosh riff that sounds like something Suicidal might have written if they were a better band. It’s got the same party-mosh beat that Suicide’s An Alternative cultivated, but with a much more menacing atmosphere and a deeper groove. COC doesn’t sound like speed freaks, they sound like pot-heads, and that’s meant to be a compliment. If there’s any doubt in your mind just wait til they shift down to first gear again to Sabbath type sludge, and a gloriously loose atonal solo, that sounds like the 2nd cousin of a classic Greg Ginn run. If there’s such a thing as Stoner-Thrash, this has to be it. Mike Dean’s vocals howl and growl their way into paranoid, angry oblivion with worlds more expression than previous “singers”, Eric Eycke and Benji Shelton, sounding absolutely sinister and disturbed. If more crossover bands had been able to display the kind of versatility that COC does just in the first 5 minutes of Animosity, maybe it wouldn’t have died such a quick death as a subgenre.
Next up is Mad World, a reworking of a song originally on the No Core comp with a more rocked out delivery, and more manic vocals. Guitar player Woody Weatherman (great name!) tears a wild solo sure to make the likes of Bubba Dupree proud (or jealous) and Reed Mullin keeps the pace under control playing a little behind the beat for a more savage feel. Side note: I called Reed’s parents house from the number listed in the No Core comp, and while he was not available at the time, his mom was really nice. Consumed is track 3 and it opens with a heavy call response section between the bass and guitar before taking off with the main riff. Holier and Positive Outlook move things along well with some good gang back-up portions, and mind-melting riffs-a-plenty.
Side B of the album is in some ways an entirely different beast. Specifically, it’s from a very different sounding recording session, and while both sides have a heavy sound, Side-B is much more raw. The drums and vocals particularly have a lot of added distortion, the vocals even sound like they were probably sung through a distortion pedal. It’s sort of crazy to think that think that a record released on Enigma/Death records in 1985, that was trying to appeal to a wider audience would have had this sound for the b-side, but there it is. Things open with the album highlight “Prayer” which has Dean at his most demonic sounding, and one of the most menacing breakdowns ever with Dean and some backup shouters repeating the line: “Pray, pray, pray for power” against a riff half way between Pentagram and Discharge. The next song, “Intervention”, starts with some unaccompanied growls and rasps, sounding like someone spitting blood up, and then enters into a circular noodling bassline which eventually gives way to the full band. Most of the songs on this side sound like they were probably written before the songs on the A-side as they are a little bit simpler, and dirtier in their presentation. It makes me wonder if there might be an entire lp’s worth of tunes from this session. Kiss Of Death and Hungry Child flesh out this distort-o nightmare version of COC, and definitely cement Animosity, Side-B, as their most crazy sounding material. The album closes with an instrumental title track, a heavy dirging jam on a couple of sludgy endless riffs. It’s a good way to finish things out.
Reviews from the time tend to complain about the more metallic and “heavy” elements that COC introduced on this album, and I’m sure there are some purists today who still feel their best work is their first lp, Eye For An Eye. Looking retrospectively at their career and where this album fit into the larger hardcore and metal landscapes though, I’m fairly certain that this is their best work, and their most original work. Eye For An Eye is a good hardcore album, but Animosity is just a great album. You could call it hardcore or cross over, or maybe even metal, but I just know it’s extremely ferocious and brutalizing.
By the way an added bonus to this album is that it features early Pushead art from before he’d developed his, at this point, extremely tired, dotted skulls+ swirly backgrounds aesthetic. Instead you get an angry bearded man, and some torn up pages from a calander? Hey, I just know it looks cool.
