Although it is an amazing thing to be able to listen to the progression of any music genre, there will always be instances where bands come together to provide a taste of where they come from for those less fortunate enough to have lived in those times. With members of Black Flag, Redd Kross, Burning Brides and Earthless, the California native hardcore band OFF! has done a great justice to the old ways of punk rock from the late ‘70s with their debut self-titled album, released this year.
The most noticeable trace that connects this record with traditional hardcore music is that every song on the album is under two minutes in length. Its shortened time-span allows not a moment to be spared as the songs scream into the listeners face with loads of attitude and a total lack of remorse. There is certainly no shortage of distortion on both the instrumental and vocal paradigm, which fits the messages behind the music perfectly. The track “Wrong” speaks out in its introduction in that it contains uniformity in instrumentals, giving a short space for some gnarly sounding guitar riffs before the full band comes crashing back in. I use the word “gnarly” considering how influential surf punk is all throughout the record. The production of OFF! sounds as if it was intended to be just that. The dirty, fast, gritty, and distorted approach is where the emulation of some of our favorite past music comes from, creating a timeless sensation of style.
OFF! has most definitely proven themselves in that there’s still that same amount of angst and defiance among generations both old and new. If it weren’t for bands like these, we would be unable to discover certain types of music the way our predecessors have. Hopefully this new, yet old, sound will be carried on even into the next generation of youthful political activists as it has in the past.
In A Word: Angry
