5.0 out of 5 based on 1 reviews. – Customer review on 01/07/2011

When punk rock first came to be in the 70s, for the most part it was really just plain old rock & roll in new clothing. It was louder and faster and whatnot, but the songs still boiled down to the same old blues based riffs and pop motifs. Black Flag might not have been the very first band who took it to the next level (that credit should probably go to the Middle Class or maybe even the Germs,) but they were undeniably the one band who piled into a van and blazed the trail across the USA, introducing a lot of people to Hardcore for the first time.

Black Flag's sound was very agressive, very brutal, very angry. This music was literally scary in its day. Catchy hooks are sacrificed for sheer power and force. Melody is eschewed in favor of atonal rage. The evolution is pretty evident on this disk, if a tad abrupt; the first four songs from the debut 7" Nervous Breakdown have a very clear Ramones-ish tint to them. After that, prepare for a sudden left turn into the psychotic stuff. I imagine this will sound somewhat tame to someone who's never heard it before and is familiar with more contemporary "aggro" music. Guitarist and founder Greg Ginn was a true musical pioneer, which was evident in the fact that he quickly grew bored with the hardcore sound and continued experimenting and evolving his music. It didn't always sound this good, but at least he had (musical) integrity. One thing that must be said is that his insane sounding solos sound like he's playing random notes as fast as he can, but he isn't. He played them exactly the same at every gig. Genius