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X was formed in Sydney, Australia in 1977 by Ian Rilen (Rose Tattoo), Steve Lucas, Ian Krahe, and Steve Cafiero.
After the sudden death of Ian Krahe in 1978, the band pushed on with a few other guitar players but struggled to find their footing. Then in late 1979, just a few months after singer Steve Lucas first picked up a guitar, the band recorded what would become X-Aspirations as a three-piece in 5 hours. Legend has it that the band went into the studio expecting to record a single. Once they loaded in, they decided to record every song they knew how to play and then pick a single from there. Most of the songs were first takes and they figured that the end result was good enough to release as an LP. In true DIY fashion, the band released the record on their own in early 1980.
The album went on to be listed as one of the 200 Greatest Australian Records of All Time and called "one of the best punk records of all time" in Maximum Rock'n'roll. It's not often that those two publications agree, but it's hard to argue otherwise.
After 10 years of being out of press in the United States, Dirt Cult Records and Green Noise Records will be releasing X-Aspirations with new cover art sanctioned by the band's only surviving member, Steve Lucas.
Some praise for the record:
"X are this old Aussie punk band from the late seventies. The bass lines are really good, the lyrics are really tight, the riffs are sick. (X-Aspirations) was an album I'd found after I heard The Ramones. Fell in love with it and it still gives me goosebumps"
- Eamon from The Chats in Classic Rock Magazine
"X-Aspirations couples deep riff repetitive rhythms with scattershot guitar and anguished vocals for a punk LP unlike any other, appropriate for a band as distant and isolated from the media focus as one could conceivably get without leaving the planet."
-Trouser Press
"If you venture into The Tote in Melbourne on any given night, you're likely to hear a band that owes some semblance of influence to X - whether they know it or not. Such is the legacy of one of Australia's most well-loved underground classics (X-Aspirations). There's a certain irony in a band revered for their lack of rehearsal inadvertently recording a blueprint for the modern Aussie punk record. And yet, perhaps that's the only way one could be recorded in the first place.
-Rolling Stone
"Fourteen vicious, out-for-blood punk tunes, all of which are steeped in some supremely heavy dark and daring shit. It's a legit classic and one of the best punk rock albums ever made."
-Maximum Rock N Roll
- Label: Dirt Cult Records
- Format Type: 12"
- Genre: punk