VIOLENT OPPOSITION - Courage And Conviction
Horror Pain Gore Death Productions
Listening to this is like stepping into a time machine back to the mid to late 80s. Oh how I remember those days very well. I started publishing my first fanzine back then, you probably heard about fanzines they were printed on paper. Anyways if I were to review this back then I'd give it a four sentence treatment mentioning who they were and calling this "DRI style short fast jazz influenced hardcore with political social lyrics, 33 songs on two 7"ers. Then I'd include the price, $3.00?, and an address.
But that was thirty years ago, it's not on vinyl, it costs more than three bucks and honestly I don't know if they are serious or paying homage. Still it's the same thing I heard thirty years ago minus the anti-Reagan song. Although I'm sure that will come on their next album and it won't be Reagan they're singing about. If ya know what I mean. The first fourteen songs, all under a minute in length, sound like one long cut with the vocalist complaining over the same eclectic riffs and drum beats. The poetry slam finally ends at the fifteenth cut when the music takes a slower almost sludgey tempo. After that slight reprieve the short songs continue on that same formula till the 33rd and final song. Ya know what? This wears ya out and out of the 33 there's only one cut longer than a minute.
So where do I start? I think the poetry slam analogy works to describe this release as well as it's creators. I remember back in the late 80s/early 90s there was this short creative trend of performance art coming out of the Anarcho punk scenes in NYC and San Francisco. You'd have someone reading their social conscientiousness writings while a band or a lone musician played behind them. Sometimes the music was classic jazz, ambient noise or straight up hardcore riffage with blastbeats. Of course it wasn't original, they stole the idea from England's CRASS. But VIOLENT OPPOSITION's take on it leans more towards jazz influenced albeit with old west coast power violence styling.
As far as the subject matter being displayed in the lyrics well given the choice I'd rather go to the nearest construction site, dig through it's dumpster to find a nail ridden two by four and beat myself in the head with it then to listen one more time to these naive rantings. Now with that said I shy away from judging a band by it's politics, in reviewing them that is. I'd say if you're into this then hey it'll be a treat. You can blast this while dressing into your anarchist uniform before you go out with your comrades to smash that evil Starbucks.
5/5
http://www.horrorpaingoredeath.com/
https://hpgd.bandcamp.com/album/courage-and-conviction
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