Complete Discography - Minor Threat

Track list:
  
1. Filler
2. I Don't Wanna Hear It
3. Seeing Red
4. Straight Edge
5. Small Man, Big Mouth
6. Screaming at a Wall
7. Bottled Violence
8. Minor Threat
9. Stand Up
10. 12XU
11. In My Eyes
12. Out of Step (With the World)
13. Guilty of Being White
14. Steppin' Stone
15. Betray
16. It Follows
17. Think Again
18. Look Back and Laugh
19. Sob Story
20. No Reason
21. Little Friend
22. Out of Step
23. Cashing In
24. Stumped
25. Good Guys (Don't Wear White)
26. Salad Days

Running time: 47 minutes
Released: 1989

I am hoping this ends up being another Action Image Exchange, a surprising and intense experience but one well worth stepping outside of my normal boundaries for. Similar crunching of tracks into a small run time, similar provenance (I believe I received both together)... similar outcome? We shall see.

It is pretty amazing how short songs can begin with long notes. I suspect it might be perceptions - they seem long in hindsight because everything that follows is so short and sharp - but nonetheless you can pack a lot into a sub-2 minute runtime if you try. 

The opening exchanges are not as full on or utterly mind blowing as after-impression of Fig 4.0 that comes to my mind, but the pace is vital and the sound is constantly shifting. I guess this form of punk is music's equivalent of sprinters... go all out for a short while, burn out and recover to go again. All action, all mouth, all strut. A million miles from my normal fare, but totally relate-able and enjoyable. I write that with a knowing smirk, because I don't really feel that in the moment. 

I am feeling a detachment from myself, a tiredness and ennui that made starting this listen harder than it should have been and has led to finding ways around doing other things today, too. I am self-aware enough to put the detachment on me though, not the sound. 

I am still tapping along, head bobbing, slight side sway. I am appreciating, but not really feeling it. 

Looking down the track list, the tempo of the album might slow down - the tracks trend longer later, and this concerns me because I can't see these rough edges supporting a more traditional length of piece. Not only that, but it is the constant cutting from one riff to another, one screed to a second, one pulsing, hammering beat to a facsimile, that gives the form its pulse, its lifeblood. Sure the band could write decent tracks, produce skilled output, but the really sweet piece about the short but intense track is that... it doesn't last long enough for its violence, its abrasiveness, to really hit home. It's like the classic trope of being dazed, shocked and surprised by an attack and not realizing the actual physical damage.

Sure enough, as I hit the second half, and the longer tracks (meaning those over 2 minutes - it's not like these are epics) I feel a little bit of the magic wearing off. The repetitions become too frequent, the impact lost by their familiarity. The same tricks have been employed all the way through, but they are seen and heard now, the wow factor is gone. I suppose I can point to my ears starting to feel like they have been assaulted to illustrate that the tone and pace hasn't all gone, but my ethereal detachment has vanished and now I am a glum guy giving less shits. 

You know what though? I would quite like more of this really fast, visceral material. My attempts to find more in the punk field that gels with me have not worked out that well. Steps taken away from the groups or albums I received together as a package have resulted in anemic, impact-less finds. Yet I am loathed to stick my toe in deeper for fear of the bad and the bile that can sometimes swill around counter-cultures. Basically I don't trust myself to find the good stuff and don't want to wade through the shit, which is likely to be actively un-enjoyable. Bad buys in other genres might be boring or bland, but they are less likely to be offensive. 

That same ability to polarise though... that is absolutely critical to the impact. Without it, if these tracks were anodyne, there would be nothing. 

I should be glad for what I have. Isn't that kind of the point of this site?

As ever with these inserts that lie outside the majority direction of these pages, which I guess I would characterise as Folk/Jazz/Singer-Songwriter... cue loss of train of thought. I don't know where I was going with that. It might have been "good to expand horizons", it might have been "quality wins out" it might have been "music has more in common..." or any number of other half-baked or half-formed thoughts.  I am glad for these little inserts though... the harder edge to the guitars, the driving riffs, the shouted lyrics, the additional personality. 

The longest track on the album is Cashing In, at 3:44. Actually I really like this one; there is something cathartic about the commonly repeated chorus. I get the sense that this track has a story behind it and the softer sound on the track is part of a deliberate sell out narrative - but that the band have still managed to make their deliberately half-assed effort sound and feel like them. If you're in, you're in, or something. I'm probably way off base here, but it felt like a statement, and not a face value one. 

The disc meanders to a close really, Good Guys doesn't have the heart, and Salad Days is Minor Threat Lite, not full fat. Overall I am less astounded and enraptured by this than I was hoping to be, but still pretty pleased in the end. Fig 4.0 made more of an impression, And None Of Them Knew They Were Robots stick with me more, but I am pleased to have heard all Minor Threat chose to offer.