Furious, angry and unrelenting, OFF!’s latest album ‘Wasted Years’ bursts out of the gate with an energy rarely seen since the height of the punk era.
Their self-titled debut album established a distinctive sound, and this latest effort continues exactly where the first left off.
Punk itself has changed drastically since its height in the 1970s and 80s, a scene that the founder members of OFF! were key players in, having themselves been members of such seminal American bands as Black Flag and the Circle Jerks.
Keith Morris and Greg Hetson are now single-handedly trying to return punk to its true hardcore roots; there are no tricks or gimmicks, this is hardcore at its most, for want of a better word, ‘hardcore’. Which is not to make light of the music. Morris and Hetson’s songs are rallying cries against the modern world, the likes of which haven’t been heard in decades.
The tracks on ‘Wasted Years’ are pointed barbs that voice anger and resentment at much of today’s society. Punk hasn’t been this political in a long time, and this return to calling out the world, and its problems, comes as a true burst of fresh air. Strange to think that the oldest element of the sound is the freshest and most timely. These tracks, while sounding like classic slices of American hardcore, also sound of the moment; which is the true joy and genius of great punk music – when done with real fire and passion, it never dates.
It is a record with only two settings: storming or pounding. Tracks like ‘Void You Out‘ and ‘Red White and Black‘ thunder past, while others such as ‘No Easy Escape‘ and ‘It Didn’t Matter To Me‘ beat repeatedly around the ears until submission; it is this relentlessness that really is the signature and quality of the album.
‘Wasted Years’ calls to mind peak-era hardcore bands such as Minor Threat, Minutemen and Gorilla Biscuit. It attacks, threatening not only the senses but the sensibilities. At its best – ‘Time’s Not On Your Side‘, ‘Hypnotized‘ and the title track – there are songs that stand against anything recorded by any hardcore band.
OFF! blaze through, never allowing a moment’s rest to take stock of the assault occurring. With only one track scraping over the two minute mark, it’s hard to know what has hit before it’s over, reeling from the intense brevity.
Many bands wouldn’t have the guts – and quality of material – to put out an album this relentlessly strong for its full duration. It is this commitment to the real hardcore sound that is missing today. But it’s not missing on ‘Wasted Years’, it is central to it.
There is a reason it is called hardcore, and this is hardcore to its very core.