Scream – NMC ’17: No More Censorship Re-Issue (Southern Lord)

I guess it’s time that I finally admitted something I’ve been keeping secret for far too long. My favourite DC band, well, they weren’t, and aren’t, even from DC.  They were from Virginia. While most folks were losing their minds about Minor Threat, Government Issue, Void and Rites of Spring, and as good as I’ve always thought those bands were, the one DC band that in my mind always stood head and shoulders above the rest of the pack were Scream. They were a veritable force of nature, a whirling maelstrom of Hardcore fury that had the sort of songs that buried their way into your subconscious and stayed there, locked in a near endless cycle of repetition. And while the idea of that would drive most folks crazy, it kept me sane. Scream’s songs armoured me against, and helped me deal with, all of the real world bullshit and teen angst that the nineteen eighties hurled my way.

No More Censorship was their fourth album and was originally released way back in 1988, and has been polished up and given a digital age make over in preparation for being sent out into the world again by Southern Lord. And it’s long overdue and about time too. The first Scream studio album to feature drummer Dave Grohl, No More Censorship is less frantic and has a much stronger rock influence than Scream’s previous output, but it’s still a pounding, nerve shredding beast of a record that’ll tear your face off at fifty paces and have you singing along with every single track on it in less time than it takes a politician to point the finger of blame at someone else for their own shortcomings and attribute their personal failures and failings to extenuating circumstances.  No More…  is also, arguably, the blueprint for everything that Wool, the Stahl brothers post Scream band, were and would become as it hammers it’s points home in its collection of driving and infectious tunes in the same sort of fashion as Wool did . Oh, and thanks to the masters of sonic destruction at Southern Lord, No More Censorship now sounds absolutely massive, like a tsunami of DC Hardcore fury that’s ready to flatten anything and everything in its way. It’s true you know, you can’t beat the classics… Tim Cundle

Be the first to comment on "Scream – NMC ’17: No More Censorship Re-Issue (Southern Lord)"

Leave a comment

Your email address will not be published.


*


This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.