So 40 years of punk eh? What a crock of shit all the “celebrations” have been to commemorate it all. Punk was never met to be acceptable and the people behind it were never supposed to be accepted by the mainstream sheep. It’s all gone wrong down the line somewhere and what has always been meant as an attack on authority an act of rebellion and standing up for rights has become nothing more than a self-congratulatory fashion show. Thankfully amidst it all there are the true survivors who are never likely to sell out and make adverts for dairy manufacturing multi-nationals; the grit, the spit and the venom is still there for those prepared to look for it. Sure bands like The Exploited and Discharge may well find themselves on bigger labels like Nuclear Blast these days but they still have the urgency and fire in their bellies that they were renowned for in the late 70’s and early 80’s. You won’t find a band like Conflict signing to EMI that’s for sure and proper punk (fuck that shite the kids call punk these days) still has Anarchy at its heart.
Discharge have weathered it through all these years and are back with their first album since 2008 release Desensitise. Over the years old allies have been, gone and returned and founding members Rainy, Tezz and Bones have said goodbye to long serving vocalist Rat and drafted in new singer JJ Janiak who like many members of the group has done time with them all in other UK institution Broken Bones. Along with dis-beater Dave Caution they proved formidable enough when I managed to catch the band live in action supporting The Exploited last year so the prospect of a new album was always going to be good; never say never again!
15 tracks, most with a couple of minutes running time and things are always going to be fast and furious. As they burst into action with New World Order (fact fans Tezz has played live in Ministry but this is no cover) it’s a sound that is obvious as belonging to one band despite the countless imitators who have duly tried to make it their own. Vocals are forceful and very much in the face, hollering at you like a rabid end of the world preacher and tarred with contempt and disgust, riffs are jagged, the drumbeat volatile and the melody flying out thick and fast. There are going to be those that say the production ain’t quite as crusty as it might have been back in the day but what you gonna do about it? No real complaints on that front from me and the chaos behind these seething attacks sounds great. There’s also a metallic bent on numbers like ‘Raped And Pillaged’ which does exactly what it states but a fiery solo works well in the seething maelstrom. Discharge were always one of the punk bands embraced by the metal crowd any way and without them there are scores of popular acts today that no doubt would not be around. Harking back to punk’s (proper) roots though is a sample warning about nuclear war ushering in the title track in true Crass like style before the band explode into the song with some neat doomy guitar lines and a cold war feel.
Take your ear off the ball and the tracks will fly by and you won’t get the true impact of them all. Having said that it’s incredibly accessible if this is a style of music that you grew up with (and give me Discharge over dinosaur metal bands any day, two fingers at you Mr Dickinson) and you will be quickly in the thick of things on addictive repeat plays. You can listen and bang your head until you are near brain-dead or get active and listen to the haranguing message behind songs like ‘False Flag Entertainment’ as Culture Shock once informed us “everything looks better on a colour TV.” As things bristle away hunger increases in catching some of these songs in a small DIY venue rather than a horrible corporately sponsored soulless place like the Forum I last saw them at. Some of the songs like ‘Meet Your Maker’ (all 1:22 of it) are going to sound very familiar as they stick to a tried and tested blueprint going decades back. Others such as the pogo bouncing gang shouter Hatebomb stick out a bit with some really heavy melodic groove lines. ‘It Can’t Happen Here’ momentarily slows it down getting all doom laden and apocalyptic before speeding back in and you look at the track title and wonder how come it’s taken them so long to use it. ‘Infected’ is another that sticks out, it has a neat moody swagger about it and struts away with a catchy chorus line amidst a bruising drum battery that really gets in your skull.
Keeping the momentum fired up all the way through there’s not a duff track on this and it should go down with the old guard as well as newer converts who will hopefully use it as a springboard to go and discover all the old classic material. Up the punx!
(8/10 Pete Woods)
Leave a Reply