BL’AST!
Blood!
Southern Lord
Some olden day bands attain cult status and reverence, whilst others just disappear smack off the radar. Santa Cruz’s BL’AST! fall in to the former category and it’s not so surprising. These young dudes knelt dutifully at the Temple of Black Flag, and honed a sound sturdily built around the driving powerful Hardcore grooves, as laid out on “Damaged”.
On encountering BL’AST! Henry Rollins derisively noted in “Get in The Van” that “every song they play sounds like Thirsty and Miserable…the rest of The Flag are watching them and laughing when they aren’t looking”. Harsh words. History has taught us that Flag may have initially mocked BL’AST! but soon liked ‘em enough to sign them to their record label SST.
Now, the origins of this demo, unearthed recently by guitarist Mike Neider are scant, and the main point of interest is the songs (recorded pretty much live in the studio) capture a short lived line-up to feature a second guitarist William Duvall. He now fronts Alice in Chains, but, more interestingly, pre-BL’AST!, was in Neon Christ, whose self-titled ’84 EP is real decent slice of Thrash Attack. The session, as served up on “Blood!” is pretty much a replica to the 2nd BL’AST! album (‘87’s) “It’s In My Blood”, with “Look In To Myself” replaced by “Your Eyes”, that later appeared on Flipside of the “School’s Out” 7”. The whole recording has been tarted up by long-time fan Dave Grohl at his 606 Studios in L.A.
So, you are not gonna find anything new for your bucks here, but you do get an absolutely banging collection of stunningly executed primal Hardcore jams, drenched in molten guitars with fired up rabid vocals, and a battering ram rhythm section. If bands like (early) COC, Aggression, Uniform Choice and latterly Annihilation Time mean shit to you, then this will too. SST owner Greg Ginn has sat on much of his back catalogue refusing to re-issue it, so this release will go someway to exposing BL’AST! to a new generation. Killer Music. “Thirsty and Miserable” my arse!
Pete Craven