I wasn’t cool enough to get into Adrenalin O.D. when they blazed their way through the Hardcore scene for a decade or so in the eighties. Too busy listening to crossover and collecting a series of lifelong injuries in the stupidly insane and vicious pits that were part and parcel of that scenes shows, I was the moron who somehow let Adrenalin OD’s humour laden, hyper-speed Hardcore pass him by. And by somehow, I mean I wasn’t switched on, or clued in, enough to realise and appreciate what was right in front of me at the time, and when I finally woke up, smelled the coffee and got into Adrenalin OD in the early nineties, they were gone. Their frantic buzzsaw, lightning quick punk rock attack was over, finished and done and they’d all moved on to play in other, less speed obsessed, bands.

But their legacy lives on and with Record Store Day rapidly approaching, Adrenalin OD’s new label (no, the band aren’t back together, the label are just reissuing their albums for a whole new generation of punkers to savour, salivate over and enjoy) Beer City are releasing an expanded version of the band’s first EP, Let’s Barbeque, that originally came out in 1984. This new version includes an unreleased song from the session and Adrenalin OD’s demo that was recorded sometime around 1982 and it’s the whole enchilada with double extra jalapeno’s and a side order of thrashtatic chili sauce. And it sounds absolutely incredible. I don’t know if they’ve worked any studio mumbo jumbo or audio engineering dark magic on these twelve tracks, but I do know that each and every one of the songs on Let’s BBQ will tear your face off at twenty paces and turn your brain to mush as they hurtle into one ear and out through the other.

I’d almost forgotten how good this record was, like Snuff attempting to break the Falcon’s Kessel Run record (even though Adrenalin OD undoubtedly influenced Duncan and Simon’s mob), Let’s Barbeque is packed full of sing-a-long lightning quick anthems, although you’ll need a couple of tanks of oxygen on hand if you want to keep up with them, and the sort of tunes that burrow their way into your brain and refuse to let go.  There’s only one record that you need to lay your sticky mitts on when Record Store Day rolls around. This is it. So go get it… Tim Cundle