Description
2016 reissue on clear vinyl with gatefold cover
This reissue compiles Discharge’s 1981 10″, “Why”, with the initial EPs that established the Stoke on Tent-based shock unit: “Decontrol”, “Fight Back” and “Realities Of War”. Discharge emerged in 1980 and 1981 — after the Sex Pistols had fizzled and the Clash’s popularity had exploded. While the media proclaimed the death of the scene, Terry “Tezz” Roberts (drums), Tony “Bones” Roberts (guitar), Roy “Rainy” Wainwright (bass), and vocalist Cal lurched out of the gate with “Realities of War.” And like any great grass roots effort, the band began to make considerable noise without the support of a distribution network or widespread media attention. Their one- and two-minute screeds (“Fight Back,” “Religion Instigates,” “Maimed and Slaughtered,” etc.) seemed taped together from existing shreds — harsh screams, snatches of messy guitar, and one-dimensional, lockstep drumming — but were the nourishment that sustained the vital U.K. punk scene beyond the implosion of its first wave. There’s no posing here, no spectacle. Rather, “Why” and its accompanying material hum with desperation and attitude. The Roberts brothers and their mates certainly had something to prove, as vicious lyrical tirades against war mongering and repressive social politics can attest (a lyric sheet is included in the reissue). But while their agenda was admirable, it’s the snapping, popping, hair dryer-in-the-bathwater quality of Discharge’s music that resonates almost two decades on. Musicians will write protest songs forever. But the immediacy of this torn and stained punk rock snapshot is hard to replicate.
Track listing:
1. Visions Of War
2. Does The System Work?
3. A Look At Tomorrow
4. Why?
5. Maimed And Slaughtered
6. Mania For Conquest
7. Ain’t No Feeble Bastard
8. Is This To Be
9. Massacre Of Innocents (Air Attack)
10. Why (reprise)
11. Realities Of War
12. They Declare It
13. But After The Gig
14. Society’s Victim
15. Fight Back
16. War’s No Fairytale
17. Always Restrictions
18. You Take Part In Creating The System
19. Religion Instigates
20. Decontrol
21. It’s No TV Sketch
22. Tomorrow Belongs To Us
23. Maimed And Slaughtered-live
24. Decontrol-live