Usually I’m not a big fan of hawking reissues. I enjoy them, I buy them, but I see no reason to push what usually ends up being, as Morrissey once said, “an extra track and a tacky badge”. However, the Bl’ast reissue is a different story, mainly because it’s not reissue, not really. Let’s get one thing straight, the Bl’ast album Blood, which sees release this month via Southern Lord Records, is not a collection of unreleased songs. All the tunes on Blood, come from Bl’ast’s brilliant second album It’s In My Blood. That being said, I urge you not to turn your back on these recordings.
First, a history lesson. Bl’ast were southern California punk/hardcore band that ran from around 1982 through 1989. Their sound? Well, imagine Black Flag’s My War era, only really pissed off. Bl’ast’s guitars were huge slabs of weird dissonance and sonic combustion. Drums pounded, bass rattled, and front man Cliff Dinsmore shouted his brains out. Equally as destructive live as on record, Bl’ast dropped the album The Power Of Expression and it was on.
In 1987 the band released It’s In My Blood, a record that pretty much blew a hole in the chest of hardcore. The impression that record left on those who heard it cannot be overstated. It’s inspired bands that never listened to it, the ripple effect was that enormous. After 1989’s Take The Manic Ride (another impressive record), Bl’ast called it a day.
Things remained quiet, and Bl’ast remained an enigma. That is, until original guitarist Mike Neider stumbled across unmixed, unreleased versions of the It’s In My Blood jams. Apparently, current Alice In Chains vocalist William Duvall once played second guitar in Bl’ast. His tenure was short lived, and the songs with him were never played for the public. Neider took his discovery to Southern Lord guru Greg Anderson, who promptly flipped out. Anderson is an old hardcore kid, and has long been pushing Southern Lord to release the most punishing hardcore he can find. Bl’ast fits that bill perfectly.
Anderson turned the tapes over to fellow Bl’ast fanatic Dave Grohl. Stripping any and all effects off the original tapes, Grohl set out to make the unreleased versions of these tunes every bit as crushing as the originals. Does he succeed? Oh hell yes he does. Blood takes these tunes to a new level. A harsher, meaner, more ridiculously heavy level. Like I said, Blood isn’t a reissue, it’s a rebirth. I can be a real hardcore purist, and even I can’t deny the power of these new mixes.
Grohl is smart to allow the songs to breathe on their own. While recording techniques and budgets were leaner in the eighties, the sheer quality of the songs, one after the other after the other, was still astounding. Grohl takes what’s there, and allows it expand with the second guitar, then raises the clarity and overall heaviness. The kinetic energy is higher, the frenzied explosions of chaos are more manic, everything that made Bl’ast brilliant is here, it’s just a little crazier and a lot bigger.
While not on the same exposure level is Black Flag, Bad Brains, Minor Threat or Cro-Mags, Bl’ast are equally as important. Like Negative Approach, Void, or Flipper, Bl’ast were pushing the levels of harsh feedback, heavy riffs and dissonant guitar work. They were pioneers right alongside all the bands that lucked into more media attention. The production on Blood allows the really incredible musicianship of Bl’ast to come through in a way the other records were unable to. It also captures a time when hardcore was pure, visceral and unpredictable.
A time when hardcore was a movement, not just a scene.
