Total Recall

by

Negative Approach

Edit

"Total Recall" is one of the best representations of hardcore that America has produced. It's not that Negative Approach are great musicians or lyricists, and the production is not what some people would call "passable" (though I love the raw stuff) ... it's that the sheer anger and nihilistic hopelessness that so many of us have experienced at one time or another comes through loud and clear in their music.

I have to take issue with a previous reviewer's comments on this album. He wrote that NA didn't "get it," that they were too one-dimensional and were just acting out on one aspect of punk/hardcore; the anger and disaffection.

Well, maybe that's how NA ACTUALLY felt. If they did write these songs out of affectation, I certainly don't hear it. The first 11 tracks (their song off of the "Process of Elimination" comp and their self titled 7") in particular are so full of venom and bile, with Brannon's perfectly growled vocals, that I can't believe Negative Approach didn't mean every word they sung at the time they were singing them.

Besides, I think bands like SSD are what made people laugh at hardcore (I love SSD too, by the way). The militantly straight edge bands that emerged in the early 80s probably did far more to alienate people than bands like NA. Yeah, maybe NA's fans were meatheads and skinheads... but, then again, so were a lot of Black Flag's (and Fear's!) fans.

At any rate, all that aside, this album rocks. The "Tied Down" LP isn't that great, but the rest of the tracks more than make up for it. Happy, well-adjusted people may not dig it, but as for angry f**k-ups, well, Negative Approach is IT.