Friday 16 December 2022

A//POLITICAL - Planting The Seeds Of Revolution

one of the best anarcho-punk albums ever and forever!.. and criminally underestimated.. I say the best album (although this one is basically the demo) and not the best band on purpose because their later works aren't even close to the power and ferocity of this one, which doesn't mean they aren't also good, just contrary they are maybe better than some which are taking bigger attention and credits..
A//Political were band from Baltimore, MA (USA) active few years in mid 90s until 2000 and this demo is from 1997 when they have finally settled down as a band after initial, as it seems, pretty turbulent couple of years with a lot of line up changes and everything else..
despite the similarities to some 80s and early 90s peace punk bands, then obvious influences from Crass, Conflict and the likes, both musically and visually, but to be honest, that's from where bunch of others (if not all) bands from 90s anarcho-punk draw inspiration and influences and that's nothing new and game changing, still they seems to be the most original and maybe the most committed, direct and often provocative, observed as the whole package, musically and especially in the lyrics in which they wasn't afraid to criticize punk scene itself.. also they were known as the ones that really lived and believed what they sang about and had huge amount of other activities and actions beside the band, as they said: "It's Not About Politics, It's About Life"..
same is with musical part which is on this album absolutely perfect.. even they are exactly what you imagine on the first when someone mentions 90s anarcho-punk, at first listen they are maybe classic for the genre, with dual male and female vocals, some spoken parts and speeches, but soon you'll realize they have that something which sets them up from the others, I'm not really sure what but I believe that's because they are so damn highly energetic and furious act, they use multi vocals often and the main two, male and female are absolutely perfect, sure they are not the best musicians out there but this is totally irrelevant in this case.. also, songs are not similar one to another and the whole thing doesn't get boring in a single moment like many others which have one or two anthemic songs which stand out from the others and are the best songs (mostly the opening ones) and the rest are somehow predictable and boring.. this isn't the case here, song structure as the tempo varies from song to song and I can't decide which one is the best to me, even crusty "Education is Indoctrination" is unbelievable energetic, contagious and perfect.. sound and production on this demo are also perfect for my taste, not polished and just as it should be, maybe one more reason why this sounds so powerful and angry..
in short, as I said in the beginning, to me this is one of the best (if not the best) anarcho-punk albums of all times, period..

- video is from awesome 6DISTRUST6 channel on youtube

- for some education, nice story about it and download link visit Terminal Sound Nuisance


fun fact: they used this awesome artwork style for which one of the members is responsible if I'm not wrong, kind of Crass/peace punk inspired, but somehow in more, I don't know, nuclear-post-apocalyptic (?!) style with this "anarchy flower" appearing on almost every release in different variants and I remember, when I was a kid that I "redraw" one of their images (the one with the kid and flower from "Propaganda By Deed") with black marker on a white t-shirt from some random anarcho flyer not even knowing about them and that they used this motive and made custom design shirt for Dislike, crust band from here and with lyrics from their song Luchar written in square shape around it which somehow fits perfectly to the image and I wear it in school and later when I basically run from home on my first Monteparadiso festival, still underage so I wasn't allowed to go.. that was some rebellious years, haha, and don't even need to mention that t-shirt was very much noticed and I was getting a lot of punk points from older crew for it, hahah..

4 comments:

axegrinder said...

jeben tejp, imam 7" koji je dosta lošiji, btw original tejp je kod mene, dar od kktza, on je bio u kontaktu s njima u antitude doba cca.

..crucified freedom.. said...

zakon!..
ja sam ih zapravo skroz otkrio, tj slušao tek u vrijeme interneta, al sječam se da si ih i ti spominjao u t.j.t.n.?, mislim da je čak i recenzija ovog bila..
da, odličan je, ima tu neku posebnu energiju i raznovrsnost, tipa ko kod nas radikalna, možda unutrašnji pa i bad justice isto..
uglavnom najbolji američki uz mankind? i antiproduct.. i aus rotten i resist naravno, al u usporedbi s ova tri oni mi na kraju "preobični"..

p.s. - ako je 7" lošiji slobodno ga stavi na onaj popis za prodaju koji si zaboravio ;)

axegrinder said...

tvoj je. ma nisam zaboravio neg sam ljen, dje ima tvoj mejl pa najbolje poslikam, neki deal 10 epja 200kn plus ptt da složimo.

..crucified freedom.. said...

to te ja pitam stari moj.. ima tu negdje gore desno, al evo ti i tu:
crufreedom@gmail.com