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Rating: Hardcore can be described with many adjectives: aggressive, nihilistic, anarchic, confusing, rebellious, and the list goes on. The first wave of HC punk can simply be identified by one name: Discharge.
Not at all ambitious in the technical and compositional side, their sole intent was to shock with short songs, concentrated into a few chords, with lyrics of a few lines screamed in a heartbreaking manner.
The main theme of "Why" is the total refusal of war, the massacre of innocents, the unjust use of military forces, against capitalism. There is no better word to demonstrate the complete misunderstanding of all this than with a single question mark: "Why?", why does all this happen before our eyes and no one can do anything about it? Again, "Why". Not only the title track has this theme, almost the entire album carries this message.
"tomorrow tomorrow
A look at tomorrow
Hysterical men woman and children
run in search of their families
I look out of my window
to a blinding bright light
Enola passes passes by"
All this description of sad war scenarios is enriched by the raw images in the booklet: dead children piled on the stairs of a building, bodies of murdered families, left on the ground with eyes wide open from fear, people in tears trying in vain to revive their massacred loved ones, Discharge still have no other words except "Why".
All this work is played in an almost epileptic manner, noisy and confusing, sung without melody, screams of desperation that make us empathize with the anguish of war, with fear, and in their way, they want to make us feel ashamed of our indifference, of our potential power enclosed in comfortable society; we have what we want and we don't care about anything that doesn't concern us. Deafening solos performed without the slightest technical execution skill suddenly burst in the middle of songs, constant distortion, poorly recorded, does all this have any value? No, "Why" aims solely at revolution, music is secondary.
Discharge influenced many future bands, it's said that speed metal, Slayer's or Metallica's thrash, fast and aggressive music originated from them. All I have to say is that the theme of this album, released in 1982, has become relevant again today, a historic album that everyone should own.
Tracklist Lyrics and Videos
04 Why (01:11)
Besides her man she kneels
Holds him tight and begins to cry
Why why why but why
Her loved one's just another piece of meat on the battlefields
Her cries break out into screams
As she now becomes hysterical with grief
Her loved one's just another piece of meat on the battlefields
05 Maimed and Slaughtered (01:06)
Men women and children cry and scream in pain
Wounded by bomb splinters
Streets littered with maimed and slaughtered
In rigid pathetic heaps
06 Mania for Conquest (01:16)
In order to satisfy their mania for conquest
Lives are squandered
To satisfy their mania mania for conquest
Civilians torn from their families
Happy homes destroyed and for what
07 Ain't No Feeble Bastard (01:30)
Ain't no feeble bastard that obeys their every say
They say do this they say do that
No I'm no dogs body
Ain't no feeble bastard
No fucking scapegoat
Ain't no feeble bastard that has no say
I say what I think
Not what they want me to think
12 Doomsday (02:39)
And now the end, the end is near
It's time to say our last Goodbye's
Doomsday, doomsday
It's doomsday, doomsday
Is it reality or just a nightmare
Nightmare, nightmare
Nowhere to run, nowhere to hide
No escape, no escape
Is it reality or just a nightmare
Nightmare, nightmare
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