Can the format on which some music appears alter a listener's enjoyment of it in any way? Could there really be that great a difference between the overall experience a listener may gain from it? It's likely that most perspective buyers of the First Four EPs by OFF! will find themselves asking that very question as the weigh the pros and cons of purchasing the four-piece box set (which was released on December 14, 2010) or the CD edition (released on February 15, 2011) of the exact same release. On a perfectly superficial level, the only difference between one release and the other it the obvious hardcopy package and about $8.22 USD, but might the different experiences attached to one over the other be the final deciding factor? While the four-piece set (four four-song seven-inch plates of vinyl) boasts a slightly brighter overall sound (the CD sounds a little muddier and/or flatter – if one plays them side-by-side and compares them), the play of it is broken up by the requisite acts of flipping vinyl sides or changing discs completely. The CD, on the other hand, offers continuous play through all of the set's sixteen songs (which clock in at about eighteen minutes altogether), and that proves to be instrumental in both building and maintaining the frenetic energy that is so infectious about the music.
Those unfamiliar with OFF! or caught unsuspecting to what they're in for will be knocked right off their feet in the first second that “Black Thoughts” unceremoniously kicks open the gates on the First Four EPs and OFF! rages through. Right from the beginning, listeners are hit square in the face with everything they can expect from this album; guitarist Dmitri Coats sears eardrums as he soars over the groundwork laid down by bassist Steven McDonald and drummer Mario Rubalcabra, armed with a set of chops that are equal parts Black Sabbath and Black Flag. For the first seven seconds of “Black Thoughts,” Coats just owns every ear the song touches and it is as poetic as it is brutal – until he's bucked back and singer Keith Morris captures the song's foreground with the words, “I can't stop.” Right then, all time vanishes. Morris is old hand at hardcore – having fronted Black Flag from 1976 to 1979 and The Circle Jerks thereafter – but he hasn't sounded this verile, this urgent or this pissed off in well (well) over a decade. Here, the singer ignores every obstacle and just slams shoulder-first into the ears of listeners so hard that it will shake them, all they think they know about punk rock and how much they think it may have changed between 1979 and 2011 to their very foundations.
Morris does that, and he does it in one minute and five seconds flat.
There are no stops or pauses for breath, there is no waiting and the band gives no quarter after “Black Thoughts” lets out. On the CD edition of the First Four EPs, listeners are just bombarded with one molten slab of minute-long (longer than that is unusual here) aggression after another, after another, after another until listeners are able to keep up and revel in the blur, rather than being shocked by it. Songs like “I Don't Belong,” “Now I'm Pissed,” “Blast,” “Rat Trap” and “Fuck People” all contain enough aggression to get any pulse racing and get the adrenaline levels of any listener up but, after that shift happens, it becomes possible to really gauge what's going on in the First Four EPs; no brand new band of young men could have written these songs because lyrics like “Your high social caste/Privileged friends/you lure me in/but I can't be your friend” (from “I Don't Belong”) and “You wonder why I'm always screaming/You wonder why I talk too loud/You want me in your inner circle/You're turning me inside out” (from “Upside Down”) drip with experience that can only be gained over years of hard work, and the anger could only have been compounded over an equal length of time before being shot forth as it is here. With that knowledge in hand, it becomes obvious that young men could not have made this record, it is the voice of experience making a point and taking the new kids to school.
It has to be said that the First Four EPs run through their plan here masterfully and will make believers out of listeners quickly too. As “Peace In Hermosa” finally winds down and literally grinds to a halt in the end, the excitement won't have faded and listeners will be reaching to play the CD again. It would be unfair to contend that one format is better than the other in this case – the vinyl edition has the superior sound quality, but the CD has the benefits of both convenience and sustaining the energy level of the music with no waiting along the way – and there is only one recommendation to make because of that: go buy the First Four EPs. The question of format is the buyer's choice because, no matter which you purchase, you'll be getting an incredible and incredibly important album.
Artist:
www.offofficial.com/
www.myspace.com/off
www.facebook.com/offband
Further Reading:
Ground Control Magazine – "It's Time To Go OFF!" – feature article
Ground Control Magazine – First Four EPs Box Set review
Album:
The First Four EPs CD is out now. Buy it here on Amazon .
