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Rating: Agent Orange is a hardcore band that recorded their masterpiece in '81, the peak year of the entire movement. They came from Fullerton, Orange County, one of the punk epicenters of the Californian province. Among the founding members, they boast none other than Steve Soto, who later went on to found the Adolescents, a name now carved in history. Why, then, for example, in the book-bible "American Hardcore: A Tribal History", despite the encyclopedic nature of the latter, are they given just a few lines? As Steven Blush himself tells us: "they never worked hard, and were soon forgotten".
Those were years of ideological orthodoxy, of incessant workaholism; years that Agent Orange instead spent surfing or skating in the delightful Californian province. They have recorded, in almost thirty years of activity, just three albums (compare that with the publishing average of Black Flag, for example). They didn't hand-number their vinyls or design their concert posters. They never toured the States in an old van but, rather, rarely ventured out of their beloved Orange County. They never entered the orbit of the nascent indie-labels but, instead, recorded their first album in the studio of Madonna’s future producer. Of heroism - a quip: neo-romantic? - and the sweat of the early kids of American hardcore, Agent Orange of Fullerton - in the century Mike Palm, Scott Miller, and James Lavesque - had little use.
"Living in Darkness" is, therefore, the black sheep of 1981. "Bloodstains", their first single, with its anthemic gait, is the most diplomatically hardcore piece of the lot, one of the Californian anthems of the year. For the rest, it is an album that reshuffles the deck to the point of difficulty in placing them in the genre in which the three moved, starting with the influences. Agent Orange did not look to the Ramones, but to Dick Dale, of whom they remade the classic "Miserlou". The class with which they combined certain sixties sounds with the very dark mood of the Reagan era is their greatness. This pre-apocalyptic tension and a certain sonic minimalism are the aspects they shared with their contemporary punks, who were, however - as already mentioned - completely astonished by their hard'n'heavy influenced riffs, by the surf/twangy sounds of Mike Palm's guitar, by the songs with an average length of nearly three minutes. The authoritative Trouser Press, one of the most important magazines to cover the "new rock" of the seventies, described them as a hybrid between Sex Pistols, Ventures, and Blue Öyster Cult, a definition more effective than any of my review acrobatics.
In clear antithesis to the ethic of action of American hardcore (anti-nihilist from its inception), the scowling pessimism and resigned despair of anthems like "Everything Turns Grey", "A Cry for Help in a World Gone Mad" (the album's peak), "The Last Goodbye", among the best ever written by Reagan’s youth, went far beyond the no future of Albion and was the last element that contributed to erasing them from rock history which, as you know, can be very cruel. So put "Living in Darkness" next to "Damaged", "Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables", "Rock for Light", "Adolescents", "Group Sex", and "Back From Samoa", before the ghost of Lester Bangs haunts your nights and, above all, before a pearl of this caliber is permanently forgotten.
Tracklist Lyrics and Videos
01 Too Young to Die ()
I didn't expect them to know my name
Surrounding me like a black steel frame
I saw the world go up in flames
And I just smiled and stood there, watching
And it doesn't seem like this is real
That's just the way I feel
I don't know why
Well I've learned from my mistakes
This time I will escape
I'm too young to die
We're all too young to die
It doesn't seem like this is real
That's just the way I feel
I don't know why
Well I've learned from my mistakes
This time I will escape
I'm too young to die
02 Everything Turns Grey ()
Things don't seem to be as easy
As they used to be
It's getting harder every day
To think of better things to say
About what's going on around you
And what's happening inside you
When it's time to change you won't know how
It won't matter years from now
No matter what you think or do or say
Everything turns grey
This is it, the darkest hour
Isn't it depressing how our
Minds create an atmosphere
That won't happen here
Unless we make some new demands
To grasp the future in our hands
You know I wish I could but it's too late
For senseless minds that love to hate
No matter what they think or do or say
Everything turns grey
No matter what they think or do or say
Everything turns grey
04 The Last Goodbye ()
(lyrics + music by Mike P.)
Someday someone somewhere somehow
Is going to make you understand
These words will drill into your head
You undergo the process then
You will do anything they say
They will have power over you
You will not question their authority
You know what they can do
(chorus)
I shake my head, I don/'t know what to say
I see my chance to turn and walk away
I will not be a part of this romance
I just can/'t take that chance
Because I see my opportunity to shout
The last goodbye
I bet you never did expect
To have a big important name
They all will have exquisite taste
But everyone will look the same
You will be quickly photographed
You will be shot from every side
They/'ll teach you what you need to learn
Then they will take you for a ride
(chorus)
05 No Such Thing ()
hey your kind of acting strange to me
you really shouldn't be so rude
i think i've seen you change your mind before
i've never seen you change your mood
everybody get away from me
don't everybody push and shove
everybody stop asking me
i'm telling you i'm not in love
there's no such thing
it doesn't matter to me i know
there's no such thing
isn't that a relief to know
there's no such thing
hey you, snap out of it
it's time for you to act your age
no you're never gonna get your way
so break into a screaming rage
a good excuse to start a teenage romance
turning love into lust
i'm only looking for somebody to talk to
or somebody that i can trust
[chorus]
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