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Wednesday, August 18, 2004

It's In My Blood

more blood and gore today. Well, just blood

Bl'ast - It's In My Blood.mp3
Bl'ast were a group of Santa Cruz skaters that absorbed all of the lessons that Black Flag could teach and then took it to the next level. Using Flag's Damaged as a starting point, the band layered varying rhythm shifts, unique guitar sounds, and powerful drumming that resulted in saitsfying hardcore. If I could change anything it would be the lyrics, which sound kind of "hardcore-cliche" to my ears nowadays. I think the band may have been straight edge, which would explain some of the goofiness.

Anyhow, this is the album closer from the 1987 album of the same name. I pulled this out a couple of weeks ago and while I don't love it like I used to, I can still appreciate how good the band sounded, especially in comparison to other stuff from the same time period. And while the Black Flag influence is appreciable on some of the bands earlierwork, I never considered them derivative. And what the hell, after Damaged Black Flag produced a lot of dreck. I find this more refreshing than anything recorded by Flag after 1981, but I'm opinionated like that.