LogFAQs > #910954917

Charles Bronson/Youth Attack!/1997/powerviolence/DeKalb, IL



I'm posting this here because I want to highlight a lesser known subgenre. This comes from the subgenre "powerviolence." Powerviolence is a genre of punk that takes other elements of punk(speed, screaming, song length) and refines them to their most extreme, so in this song you have really short, really angry sounding songs.

"Alright man this is it, you gotta be hard, no mercy. We goin' in like professionals, like Charles Bronson. We don't stop 'til the screaming starts, you dig?" - intro to the first track "Marriage Can Suck It"

This album features 20 songs that blaze by in 12 minutes. The vocals aren't completely unintelligible, as you can make out some of them but it isn't easy to do. The drumming is ferocious with bursts that are almost like blast beats. People do like these individual elements of punk rock, so there is a following for this type of music, since powerviolence is just stuff they already like, yet more extreme.

This album has an average song length of around 40 seconds, and with the number of pre-song audio clips, this album also doesnt seem to take itself so seriously. In one, a guy calls up a record store, only to find out they don't have any Charles Bronson records and the record store guy didnt know that band. But when he asked if they had any One Life Cru records(I think a more obscure band), and the guy knew exactly who that was and that they did have them, he was elated. The overall tone of Youth Attack!" is actually youthful, despite the rage. Song titles include "Marriage Can Suck It", "xdumbfucksx", "Fuck Technology, I'll Keep My Pocket Change", "The Only Time I Think About Romance Is When I Wonder Why I Don't Think About It"

This isn't an album that is going to throw any tricks into the mix in terms of production. Its going to sound lo-fi and gritty. It is what it is. It doesn't sound completely one dimensional in this regard, though, but it really just is fast, quick songs that never relent. In fact the only time the album slows down is when they have audio clips from movies and shows. This album also contains a cover of the Husker Du song, "Punch Drunk"

Rather than get this album a far, far better value would be Complete Discocrappy which includes every song this band has ever recorded(117 tracks in 86 minutes), though the song quality varies heavily and you might end up liking this albums tracks the most.

In closing, "That was a little too Chuck Bronson for me, Scully" - audio clip from "Close Encounters of the Nerd Kind"