Violent Pacification

The ultimate hardcore record. 26 songs in 22 minutes, and it would have been even shorter if it weren't for that darned three-minute "Violent Pacification" epic. I guess this was recorded when they lived in Texas, but it's not a terribly cowboy-oriented record. In fact, the songs are every bit as vicious and fierce as you'd expect from taking a gander at the cover portrait of a skeleton in army gear busting into a house (the original cover was different - I'm just talking about the reissue here - you'll never find the original, anyway...).
The crisp lightning speed drums sound like a military drummer gone ballistic, the vocals are thrown at you at an incomprehensible tempo (e.g. "Why" has four verses - and the entire song is eighteen seconds long), and the guitar is thrashing out piercing chord sequences that will all sound exactly the same to you the first eight or nine times you hear the record. If you give them the time they deserve, they eventually reveal themselves to be 26 completely different catchy punk melodies that are just being played way too fast, but, for those of you who just can't find anything to grab hold of, the band helps you out a little bit, as they're wont to do. They give you a guitar solo in "Sad To Be," a slow building break in "Violent Pacification," an air-raid guitar intro in "Balance Of Terror," a dark arpeggiated intro in "Blockhead," some funny a capella cussing in "Couch Slouch," as well as an entire a capella verse in "No Sense," echoed vocals in "Plastique" - my point, you see, is that there are anchors that will help you distinguish the songs from each other until you've heard them enough to adore and cherish each individual one as it should be cherished. Again, this is the ultimate hardcore record. Catchy, violent, loud, insane, smart, political, funny - and, fellow, awfully fast. Plus, as with all D.R.I., the louder you play it, the better it sounds.