{"id":100558,"date":"2020-03-18T11:00:16","date_gmt":"2020-03-18T16:00:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/toiletovhell.com\/?p=100558"},"modified":"2020-03-17T17:44:18","modified_gmt":"2020-03-17T22:44:18","slug":"albums-for-the-apocalypse-hear-nothing-see-nothing-say-nothing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/toiletovhell.com\/albums-for-the-apocalypse-hear-nothing-see-nothing-say-nothing\/","title":{"rendered":"Albums for the Apocalypse: Hear Nothing See Nothing Say Nothing<\/i>"},"content":{"rendered":"
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There are points in history when you can feel the world fall apart, see the threads holding society together grow taut and begin to snap. Whether it’s the looming climate disaster, or a global pandemic, or just a war that destroys all life on earth, there’s always something waiting to collectively fuck us up. What better time then, to revisit the albums that have documented that exact feeling in similarly perilous times.<\/p>\n

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In 1982, Discharge gave us just such an album\u2014Hear Nothing See Nothing Say Nothing<\/em>. Clocking in at a lean 27 minutes, the album is absolutely pitiless. Songs rip by one after the other, painting miniature pictures of chaos and destruction. The musical equivalent of a nuclear blast, HNSNSN<\/em> is both a document of the world at the height of the Cold War and a bold statement that nuclear holocaust is only inevitable if we allow it to be.<\/p>\n

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If this describes a lot of hardcore and metal you’ve heard over the last 40 years or so, you may be wondering why I chose\u00a0HNSNSN\u00a0<\/em>over anything else. Discharge’s stylistic and lyrical approaches are the key. In pure musical terms, there shouldn’t be a lot to recommend here: every song follows a basic formula of riff intro, drums kicking in the d-beat, a verse, a solo, and an abrupt cut to silence. Every song is essentially the same, grinding waves of detuned guitar and bass over a punishing and invariable d-beat.<\/p>\n

What transforms that basic template into greatness isn’t so much a particular element as the unified effect it produces. While\u00a0HNSNSN<\/em> is full of absolute classics (“Protest and Survive,” “Free Speech for the Dumb,” “Drunk with Power,” the title track), there’s never a break for the Discharge’s songwriting to meander or get bogged down in specifics. For Discharge, momentum isn’t just an abstract concept but a way of life, their music both the medium and the message in a frantic rush through scenes of musical destruction.<\/p>\n

“Napalm tumbles from the sky”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Lyrically, Discharge are possibly the most underrated band to ever walk the earth. Every song is pared down to the barest possible kernel of meaning, like Ezra Pound if someone had beaten the fascism out of him at an early age. Songs like “Free Speech for the Dumb” feature as little as a single line repeated endlessly in Cal Morris’ desperate bark. Cal “sings” entirely without irony or distance, his voice becoming just another instrument turned up to 11 to overwhelm the listener.<\/p>\n