Jeff's Staff Pick: March 23, 2023

What’s up Sorry Staters?

I know all you readers out there are stoked that your pre-orders for all the new releases on Sealed and La Vida are finally here! They’ll soon be on their way from your local mail carrier and directly onto your turntables. We appreciate your patience on those! I don’t know what it is about this week, but I’m feeling more sapped of energy than I usually do. Certainly, we’re busy here at Sorry State, but it’s not as if I’ve been slammed with other stuff going on (at least not yet haha). I haven’t even really been listening to that much music. I mean, OBVIOUSLY, I’ve been spinning the new Electric Chair on repeat, but that’s more like a religious experience than casual record listening.

Ya know what’ll make me feel more positive? The uplifting sounds of BL’AST! Let’s talk about Bl’ast! for a second: I feel like most people I talk to about this band think of them as this dirgey take on hardcore, and maybe they’re not everyone’s cup o’ tea. Which I guess I understand, but I always thought they were so killer. What happens when you take a bunch of Santa Cruz skate rats and have them condense and refine the most essential elements of Black Flag? You get Bl’ast! I mean right down to the guitar players using clear lucite Dan Armstrong guitars. You might say, “Man, these guys must reeeeally like Black Flag.” On the contrary, I think they ONLY like Black Flag haha. In a way, if all the sonic juices of Flag were strained and funneled through some cheese cloth, Bl’ast’s resulting liquid would be the sweetest and purest nectar. That said, I think Bl’ast’s take on this sound is more-so through the lens of mean skateboarders with a more gnarly and muscular approach to playing. Black Flag in some ways was much more “artsy”. That’s not to say Bl’ast! were non-intellectual, but whereas Black Flag grew their hair out, started getting into sensitive poetry, and went in different musical directions, Bl’ast always remained the most “core”. You might say their sound was incorruptible. And maybe because of that singular identity, it seemed like the band could only do one thing. But they did it better than anyone. The band is clearly borrowing musical ideas most certainly from Damaged, and maybe even a little bit of My War. And like I said before, by the time Black Flag got to their 3rd record, they went in a more experimental direction. And beyond that, certain moments in Flag’s catalog I find questionable.

The first Bl’ast record, Power of Expression, is an all-time classic. And then, It’s In My Blood is maybe evolving that initial statement they made on the first album and cranking it up a notch. But where do you go from there? Some acoustic interludes? Introduction of a horn section? No way, josé. You get MORE riffs. MORE heavy. MORE cacophonous. MORE intense. You get MANIC. Southern Lord just reissued Bl’ast’s 3rd album Manic Ride. I feel like this record gets much less attention than the first 2 records. If you can imagine the band pushing their sound even to the next degree, that’s what you get on this 3rd album. The band does incorporate some brief spurts of harsh noise and even some Sabbath-esque drawn-out doomy passages. So yeah, I guess they are trying some new stuff on this record. But they still lean into those powerful riffs with ferocity. The production is insane. So huge and over the top, but still somehow raw? The spidery, single-note riffs are even more… well I guess “manic”, and just all over the place than on the band’s previous records. Because of the technicality, the band sounds more metallic in certain moments. The manic ride is not exactly joyous, it’s a pure wave of adrenaline that is unrelenting. Like when you approach the crest of the first drop of a rollercoaster, but that anxious feeling as the pit grows in your stomach never really fades until the record drags into the dead wax.

Southern Lord sent us copies of this reissue on beautiful red vinyl, so grab one if you wanna take the ride. Also, come on… that has got to be the SICKEST inside gatefold design on any record I’ve ever seen. So rad! Let the world end, but not before I go out and shred.

Hmmm, yeah that’s all I’ve got to say about that. As always, thanks for reading.

‘Til next week,

-Jeff