I must admit that I missed out on BL’AST! the first time around, eventually getting word of these guys through bands like Black Flag and Fu Manchu. But it wasn’t until their long-lost album Blood! was recently unearthed by Southern Lord that I really got into ’em, so this remastered reissue of their ’86 debut by the same label has certainly got my attention.
“Time to Think” has a lengthy buildup to a metric fuckton of riffage, which sounds absolutely massive on this remix. The first track surges seamlessly into “Surf and Destroy,” an old-school punk rock rager. Let’s just say that the song title isn’t the only part that pays homage to The Stooges. Early on, it’s apparent that there’s less of that post-punk weirdness that trickled out of Blood!, but they still drop some doomy downstrokes haphazardly in here — dig the breakdowns in “Fuckin with My Head,” for instance.
“The Future” is the first five-minute detour about halfway through, a slower, sludgier song with some angry bellows dropping bombs between gritty, chugging guitar riffs. When things speed up, it feels frantic, unhinged and unsettling, before the pace quickly drops again. This sorta stuff makes you wanna punch someone in the pit. “Time Waits (For No One)” packs an equal wallop, albeit at a generally higher tempo. This one also contains some killer breakdowns.
The Southern Lord reissue features alternate versions of just about every song from this album. Because this one’s good enough to listen to twice.
