Bad Brains
Bad Brains

THE REVIEW

To the Pistols' swastikas, to the cheerful Virgin-EMI couple, to Joe Strummer's gospel choruses, Hardcore responded not only as a positive reply to the world, but also as a rejection of all industrial mechanisms within music. A rejection of how music had, until that moment, been created, produced, and distributed. Meetings, labels, concerts flourished, all organized from the grassroots, and the social side joined the inner side in a sort of romantic perception of "us against them." White kids who, before surrendering to their gray middle-class future, driven by hatred against any form of authority, gave life to an authentic youth revolution as activist as it was reflective. The Bad Brains, black, poor, and lightly drugged, are the exception to everything said so far. The bad brains present themselves with their name alone.

It was 1982 when RIOR of New York decided to release this cassette, which preceded by only a year the more national-popular "Rock for Light" and which differs from its younger sibling (so to speak) due to its blind fury in execution. Forget "Rock for Light" and its horrifying production. Indeed, imagine it: imagine it with a much heavier and more present guitar; imagine it devoid of any frills and with a distorted bass that bursts from the speakers; also, imagine that shrieking voice that's about to spit, along with blood, also its soul; imagine it even faster and more ferocious.

"Bad Brains" is the politically incorrect version of "Rock For Light". It's the Hardcore version of one of those records that makes Hardcore. 15 songs in just over 30 minutes of music. An intellectual, physical, and moral outburst. And then you can't miss "Pay to Cum," "Leaving Babylon," and "I Luv I Jah", absent on the younger sibling (again, so to speak).

Warning: if you are between 15 and 50 years old and feel deeply pissed off, this music might seriously harm your already unstable balance.