No Comment - Downsided (hardcore)
Posted Jul 12, 2010, by Marc.
Featured Artists: No Comment;
Genre: Hardcore;
No Comment is the quintessential representation of American Hardcore Punk during the early 1990’s. Their 1992 7” E.P. entitled “Downsided”, released by Slap A Ham Records, is a straight bullet to the brain, an 11 song outburst of raw music. Each song blasts by in less than 40 seconds. I highly recommend No Comment’s E.P. to music enthusiast that value fast paced rhythms, heavy sudden break downs, blast beats, and powerful shouting type vocals that carry the fury behind the band’s sound.
No Comment takes a serious and sometimes demented approach in their music. Songs liked “Hacked to Chunks” and “Soiled by Hate” express their morbid fetishes that are finely tuned to their extreme style and speed. Other songs such as “Dead Stare for Life”, “Sarcastics”, “Distant”, and “Hurt” exhibit a message of concern for internal and external struggles and relations between individuals, society, and institutions. The 18 second song “Hurt” caught my attention because it speaks of personal problems that continue to persist after attempts have been made to solve the issues, a type of reflection a person can apply in their own lives. Frustration with our inability to cope and defeat hurt is the immediate feeling I sensed when listening to this song. The song arrangement and delivery twists yours mind in 4 blistering rants, always ending with the complex reality of: “and still the problems, they persist.”
No Comment’s E.P. embodies the converging point in Hardcore Punk from the raw 1980’s Reagan punk sound and ideology to the excruciating 1990’s Power Violence sound and ideology defined by frustration, speed, melt downs, and an anti-authoritarian consciousness. “Downsided” by No Comment is a fundamental contribution to Hardcore Punk because the song arrangements, vocal style, and the sheer energy define today’s understand of Hardcore Punk, and the growth of the Hardcore Punk movement since its conception in the 1980’s. Hands down, No Comment is brutal.
