Two from Woody ; Poison Idea and Primate

Poison Idea - The Fatal Erection Years (Pick Your King)

So it appears that the mighty Poison Idea will rise again. Despite the fact that guitarist Pig Champion died in 2006, unstoppable vocalist Jerry A has been leading a new version of the band for about 5 years now. They're playing an insanely killer festival in Brooklyn this Zeptember alongside Pentagram, Agnostic Front, Negative Approach and Powertrip (featuring Jeff Dahl, who cut a great single with Poison Idea way back when). I've been a huge fan for decades but never got to see Poison Idea in their prime. To get me even more excited, Southern Lord is starting to reissue the band's catalog. Earlier this year they put out Darby Crash Rides Again (The Early Years) compiling their most primitive punk rock.

Next up is an excellent reissue titled The Fatal Erection Years containing the classic Pick Your King (1983) and Record Collector Are Pretentious Assholes (1984) EP's. Both of these records show a band in transition moving away from an overt Germs/Black Flag influence into their own unique behemoth. Everyone always makes jokes about how heavy these guys were physically but their sound was even heavier. Pretty early on these guys started to enjoy alienating part of the punk audience with their obnoxious behavior and love of metal. Needless to say I loved them from the second I heard them. Pig Champion could come up with killer riffs to compete with anyone while Jerry A was the perfect frontman. Imposing, alcoholic and not afraid to breathe fire on stage in some tiny little punk dump. Pick Your King has lots of short, fast songs with titles like "Pure Hate" and "Self Abuse." It also has a song called "(I Hate) Reggae" which I loved playing for my uptight, humorless Clash loving friends. Man, they really hated that one! Record Collectors… had a great album cover featuring some of Pig Champion's choicest sides that had me drooling in envy. The album was the next step in their development. The songs are even harder, but better written with the beginnings of their patented style becoming more apparent. "A.A.," "Legalize Freedom" and the rest were all kick ass blasts of pure punk with a solid rock n roll foundation and the best elements of metal.

The rest of this collection combines some rare cuts from various artist albums, including a blistering cover of The Stooges' "I Got A Right." Then there's a low-fi live show from 1983 with lots of profanity. Kinda sloppy at times but what do you expect when there's chaos on the stage and in the crowd. You definitely feel like you are there. Bonus points for a very immature song called "My Hard-On Withers In Your Face Live" and a nasty "Louie Louie." Taang records reissued a lot of Poison Idea records on CD many years ago with pretty terrible sound. The levels are really low on those discs and these new ones from Souther Lord are much improved. Can't wait to see what extras they have for the all time classics War All The Time and Feel The Darkness.

Primate - Draw Back A Stump


Just before I got the promo link for the Poison Idea record I got one for the debut from Primate, a grindcore supergroup featuring Bill Kelliher of Mastodon and Kevin Sharp of Brutal Truth. The first thing I thought of when I heard their album Draw Back A Stump was how much it reminded me of Poison Idea. Not surprising since Kevin had a side project with Buzz of the Melvins called Venomous Concept. I'm fairly ignorant about grindcore. I saw Pig Destroyer once and thought they were awesome. The 8 other bands on the bill all sounded the same to me. Anyhow, I'm sure there's a lot of obvious comparisons that a grind fan would make but I'm too old to know.

An earlier version of this record came and went quickly in 2011 but this one has some additional guitar tracks as well as a remix and fresh mastering. Bonus tracks, too. The opening title track starts off with lots of guitar noise and a screaming monologue about "chaos theory." I almost decided to turn it off right there but had nothing better to do on the subway ride to work. Things quickly improved and a procession of memorable riffs followed. "Hellbound," "Wasted Youth" and "Get The Fuck Off My Lawn" had me raging on the rails. What really caught my attention was the cover of "Drinking And Driving" from the last Black Flag album In My Head. Great song from an overlooked album. Primate's sound is very heavy and matches Kevin's frothing at the mouth vocal delivery. Given the hectic schedules of everyone in this band, who knows if they'll tour but I'd pay money to see them. I'd also recommend it to other old dudes like me so they have something new to play in between their battered Zoetrope and Necros tapes.

--Woody

Poison Idea - Kings of Punk

After our whole Taang! experience, and listening to the Attitude Adjustment CD, The Collection, I got to thinking . . . and mind you, it wasn’t the type of stop everything, I need to sequester myself to an abandoned shed for forty days and forty nights type of thinking. This was more of the casual thinking as I sit in a drive-thru waiting for my latest order of gut bomb in a bag to be handed to me. The thought racing around my noodle (mmm, noodles) was, what makes good punk rock? I’m sure everybody reading this will have their opinion as to what makes good punk rock, and it was more of a rhetorical thought than an actual forum question anyway.

After listening to Poison Idea’s Kings of Punk, I feel that I’m that much closer to satisfying a portion of that burning drive-thru question. Kings of Punk is a blistering anti-everything tirade that got me blood boiling, my fists pumping, and my body shaking. The album is high intensity, fast paced, and irreverent as all good punk, in my mind, should be. But here’s the wrinkle, folks . . . and yes, it gets better . . . these guys don’t seemingly just bash their instruments into submission and scream nonsensical obscenities, they create massively moving punk rock epics filled with dynamic shifts in tempo and mood. I would hate to insult the Poison Idea guys by calling this progressive punk, because there isn’t that flighty, soaring silliness that inherent in a lot of prog. But what these do bring is a sense of song craft that’s more challenging that the standard fair of punk rock. I’ve always wondered why if punk rock is supposed to be so intelligent in subject matter that it had to be so 4/4 and standardized to the point that it takes absolutely no conscious effort to listen to it. Poison Idea, thankfully, solved this conundrum for me.

“Lifestyles” kicks off the album in full on classic punk rock fashion. High speed drumming and a wall of distorted guitar chaos, all given an exclamation point with the snotty sneering vocal attack of Jerry A, this is an attention getter from the opening minute. That primal assault on the senses does the job for certain, appealing to that dark and despondent streak that can run through me on the best and worst of days, but then . . . then, these guys pull the figurative E-brake and skid this bitch around a corner so fast that if you were in a pursuit car, you’d be shredding your tires trying to break yourself. Just a hair over a minute into the song, they drop the tempo way down, play distorted arpeggios and give the notes space to breath a bit. Powerful shit! There’s a great deal of stellar musicianship in this track, from the out-of-the-box bass lines to the mournful guitar passages, this song is a spotlight on headiness that hardcore can have.

“Ugly American” is a more mid-tempo crusher and the song is packed with more musical moments of brilliance. Again, great bass licks, heavy guitar riffs, but tastefully played, and the vocals are impassioned and venomous. And, it features one of the elements that’s always made punk rock so cool to me, a strong lyrical message. In the case of “Ugly American” the band launches an all out assault on the neo-Nazi movement and their views of racial inequality. A song with focused rage, though maybe not the most politically correct or tactfully diplomatic, it doesn’t need to be. The point is made that injustice won’t be tolerated and those who have intolerant viewpoints will be looked down upon. All of three minutes long and I feel like I’ve been rocked for an hour.

   

Throughout Kings of Punk, I’ve found myself gravitating towards the songs that have the richest dynamics, such as “Lifestyles”, ”Death Wish Kids”, and “Tormented Imp”.  I dig the change of pace . . . there’s only so much of the hopped up rock n’ roll and massive volume and insane speed that I can handle, so the tempo changes that Poison Idea inject into their songs is welcomed with open ears. “Made To Be Broken” is one of my favorites with its quai-Boston punk intro and bombastic assault on the senses . . . I mean, this screams punk rock in every classic sense of the word. Then as I found myself just about to collapse into a ball of battered flesh and bones, the band changes things up . . . slows the tempo down a bit, but without losing any of the earlier power from the song, and they return to the opening guitar line with punk-y melodic Celtic thing going on. That, my friends, is simply bitchin’ work!

“Tormented Imp” is a cataclysmic grinder full of subtle nuance that took me by complete surprise. Mostly performed in mid-tempo, the intensity on this track is damn near overwhelming. I love the vocal approach, building with intensity and rage from the first to the second . . . and then as we swing from the left to the right, fuck! And the slight breaks that the band place in this one makes the song one of the most compelling and interesting moments on the disc. The metalhead in me is disappointed that the song doesn’t continue longer while the punk rock in me thinks it over stays its welcome. I love it. Excuse me a sec . . . I need to play it again.

Originally released in 1986, while I was jerkin’ myself wild over the musical spectacle that was Metallica’s Master of Puppets, Kings of Punk could easily have been the most important punk rock/hardcore album of the time. It has everything one could want from a punk rock disc . . . high energy, uncompromising, intelligent, and completely unique from any other hardcore from this era. Recommended by the good folks at Taang! Records, I’m thrilled stupid that I paid enough attention and had the good sense to listen to someone other than the voices in my head. I grew up hearing the name Poison Idea in my various circles of friends, but no one ever had the balls to enlighten me to their sound. Now I’ve heard them and now I love them. I suspect my bank account will become more and more empty due to Poison Idea. I suppose I could do worse. A lot worse.

--Pope

Buy here:  www.taang.com

http://homepages.nyu.edu/~cch223/usa/poisonidea_main.html

Nails - Unsilent Death

Fast, loud, angry and to the point. That’s really all one I say about Unsilent Death by the band Nails. Their 10 songs in 13 lucky minutes makes Blood, Guts & Pussy by the Dwarves seem like a Dream Theater concept opus. I’m sure crusty types can rattle off the names of hundreds of “d-beat” style bands that they sound like but to me Nails taps into the dirty source of Discharge, Motorhead, Hellhammer and Poison Idea.

Since this album is so short, the songs run one into another as sort of a brutal musical suite. The fast ones are very fast and are usually a minute or less. The opening pair of “Conform” and “Scum Will Rise” are over so quickly you barely have time to figure out if you like them or not. If those 2 annoy you then you certainly won’t like the longer, slower ones. The title track is over 2 and a half minutes of a slower Hellhammer/Celtic Frost grind with a bit of a Slayer chug thrown in at the end. The 28 second “Traitor” manages to squeeze in some tempo changes before crashing into the next blitz. The album wraps up with the lengthy “Depths” (almost 4 minutes!) with screechy feedback and negativity for all.

Production on Unsilent Death is heavy as hell. Guitars crunch all the time but squeal nicely when they have to. The bass sound is massive and the drums hit hard and fast. The vocals are guttural and screamy but never venture into cookie monster territory. Overall this is a winner if you need a speed fix and need to break a lot of shit in a hurry.

 --Woody

Buy here: Unsilent Death
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Band website

http://unsilentdeath.com