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Saturday, December 11, 2004

Look At All The Children Now

I always viewed the 1990 New York hardcore comp Look At All the Children now as big middle finger to those more famous NYHC bands like Agnostic Front, Sick of It All, and the whole stable of Revelation Records artists. Look... was the record that served notice that not all NYHC bands were cut from the same cloth, that there was more to the NYC scene than tough guy knucleheads and empty promises of 'brotherhood' and 'unity'. While musically similar (metallic hardcore) to the bands they sought to distance themselves from, the mindset of bands like Citizen's Arrest, Rorschach, Go! and others on the comp was miles apart. (i.e. the were more liberal and thus appealing to the almighty punk policy makers - MRR ) The title was lifted from a line from Iron Cross's song Grey Morning, which was covered on the comp by MAS (a one off band?). This served as another shot at the NYC hierarchy, as Agnostic Front had been playing IC's martyr complex anthem 'Crucified' for years. As I would expect, many of the songs on Look... haven't aged well (i.e. Yuppicide, pure dreck), but a couple are still worthy:

Citizen's Arrest - Death Threat.mp3
Hyper thrash from Citizen's Arrest, who specialized in this sort of mayhem. I think these recordings may have pre-dated their first EP A Light In The Darkness.

Moondog - Expression.mp3
Voice sound familiar? That's Walter Schreifels on vocals. Moondog was a post-Gorilla Biscuits, pre-Quicksand project for Schreifels that never had an official release (I think their demo was booted)

Bugout Society - Partyline.mp3
This was originally one of my favorites on this comp due to the humor and chaotic music. Bugout Society's LPs never lived up to standard set by this song, stifled by bad production and subpar songs. This one still cracks me up however

Rorschach - Something.mp3
Crunchy, metallic hardcore that bleeds intensity. The raw vocals and tempo changes keep this interesting. Their discography CD Autopsy is quite good, though extended listens can be draining.

As always, hit me up with any corrections as their isn't a ton of info on this comp out there.