Monday, March 28, 2011

Everything Else Is Out Of Our Hands



I remember seeing big half-page ads for this record all the time in MRR when it first came out, but I don't think it had much of an impact. At a time when hardcore was still fairly dominant within the U.S. underground music scene, I'm guessing that 4-1/2-minute punk songs and 8-song LPs weren't such a good idea. A CD re-issuing all of The Front's '80s vinyl is either out now or in the works, so maybe things will work out differently for them this time around, who knows.

Almost to a fault, The Front drew comparisons to The Clash (read: fake British accents and boring lyrics), though outside of the obvious Joe Strummer Alert being set off by the vocals, I don't hear a whole lot of Clash in here-- except maybe towards the more revved-up Clash stuff like "White Riot" (the only Clash record I've ever bothered to own, by the way). California bands like M.I.A. and Mad Parade, or Boston's Last Stand, probably make better comparisons. There's not a lot of variety here, either; every song seems to be built upon the same ringing Cockney Rejects "Bad Man" guitar riff, save for the two "regular" rock songs (with piano and harmonica, no less) on side two, which you can barely skip over fast enough. There's still some pretty good hooks to be found, though, and the overall sound is fairly nice and thick, thanks to the production of Ethan James, who also engineered the Minutemen's "Double Nickles on the Dime" and Sonic Youth's "Bad Moon Rising". Folks who liked Chronic Disorder or that Chopper EP that I posted a few years back will probably really dig this, though I know that's not sayng much.




The Front -









16 comments:

Mike said...

Wow! Only White Riot?!? This band is good/decent. Sorta like maybe where the Red Rockers should have went instead of putting out "China".

Brushback said...

I've been waiting to see if anyone compares them to The Alarm.

Yeah, I'm not a big Clash fan.

This is radio Wingate said...

Et Tu, Brush-tay? I still don't understand how any punker can NOT like The Clash. Unless one is not a fan of '77 stuff in general.

Brushback said...

For '77-'78 stuff, give me the Pagans, CRIME, Sham 69, Saints, even the Damned (mostly Pagans and Crime, tho)... anything but The Clash!

I owned a 101'ers single, too ("Keys To Your Heart").

Bruce Strummer said...

only one English band on your list? No Undertones, Stiff Little Fingers, Buzzcocks? Perhaps we're getting to the root of the problem!

Brushback said...

Gimme Dangerhouse over that UK crap any day!!

Well, I did own a couple of Stiff Little Fingers LPs, and of coursse I love the Buzzcocks... but yeah, Saints, Crime, Pagans, Weirdos, Deadbeats -- that's the good stuff.

and fuckin' AC/DC

Bruce Vicious said...

you kids today!

Brushback said...

Bruce, you'd never know that you and I are the same age-- I'm like 5 years behind you on everything.

Guess who I ran into last night: BILL KNAPP. I sat down next to him but I didn't look over at him so he said "you don't recognize me, do you?" and I said "sure I do, that's why I'm not talking to you!" (true story)

Bruce said...

hahahahha! beautiful!

Brushback said...

I'm not always pleasant to hang around with.

Anonymous said...

Dooood-

Lots of brit-punk is aces and gotta love those huge studios they got to use....

BUT

U.S. punk from the same time period does win overall if for nuthin else but the fact they had NO training wheels like brit-punk (total media saturation-major label money..ect).

U.S punk had to float on its own merits

Chris said...

That last comment makes The Saints even more amazing. Anyway, I hear something between 7 Seconds rock period and The Toll.

Brushback said...

Oh God, the 7 Seconds "rock" era. Now there was an embarassing moment.

Brushback said...

Oh yeah, and the Australian X

Brushback said...

Downloadable files have been removed and replaced with a single listen-only file

Brushback said...

Also, La Peste. All better than that Clash shit.