SST

If What Makes a Man Start Fires? was a remarkable step forward from the Minutemen's promising debut album, The Punch Line, then Double Nickels on the Dime was a quantum leap into greatness, a sprawling 44-song set that was as impressive as it was ambitiou

Slip It In followed My War almost immediately, and while a bit better (fewer mega-volume angst drones), the band still wanders a bit, experimenting with expanding the breadth of hardcore into a newer hard rock/punk sound. This is especially true of Greg G

Husker Du really hit its stride on this sprawling 1984 release. Zen Arcade established the band as one of the leading lights on the American indie scene. The 23 songs are loosely linked to a narrative structure about a young man who leaves home, only to d

Husker Du: Bob Mould (vocals, guitar); Grant Hart (vocals, drums); Greg Norton (bass). Personnel: Bob Mould (vocals, acoustic guitar, electric guitar, piano, percussion, background vocals); Grant Hart (vocals, piano, drums, percussion, background vocals);

When the Minutemen were forced to split up in December of 1985 due to the untimely death of singer/guitarist D. Boon, the remaining members (bassist Mike Watt and drummer George Hurley) were so devastated that they considered giving up music all together.

Just when the Descendents were thought to have gone to the world of bands who've passed their prime, they return with All. With this record, not only are they forgiven for the bad spots to be found on here -- it's not like they can't be skipped over -- bu

Damaged is the classic debut studio album by the American hardcore punk band Black Flag. SST Records released it December 1981.

Black Flag reached a new level of intensity and raw fury with this release. This could be Henry Rollins' lifetime highpoint.

Recorded at Long View Farm, Worcester, Massachusetts. Some people just don't 'get' Bad Brains. To be fair, their early recordings can be intimidating, and it is only when you familiarize yourself with the musical dialectics of tracks such as 'Pay To Cum'

Somery is an overview of the Descendents' SST records, drawing equally from each album released by that label. Although this means a handful of great songs from their best albums are missing, Somery nevertheless selects the highlights from their occasiona

Understandably, Screaming Trees gained far more attention during the '90s, caught up as that decade was in the Nirvana fallout and the fluke (but well-deserved) success of "Nearly Lost You." But the band's '80s efforts are worth a listen, and Anthology, c

A brief live EP, Land Speed Record races through its songs without regard for melody or riffs. As a sonic blitzkrieg, it's quite impressive, yet little of the record makes a lasting impression.

fIREHOSE's second release, 1987's If'n, was a major improvement over their 1986 debut, Ragin', Full On. And while their third album, 1988's fROMOHIO, was another solid set and contained its share of highlights, it seemed to be cut from the same musical cl

fIREHOSE's second release, 1987's If'n, was a major improvement over their 1986 debut, Ragin', Full On. And while their third album, 1988's fROMOHIO, was another solid set and contained its share of highlights, it seemed to be cut from the same musical cl

And indeed, since he was heading off to do just that, the Descendents bowed out the earliest phase of its existence with another collection of blink-and-you'll-miss-it songs about life, love, girls, losers, and, of course, food. Starting with the classic

After a rancorous three-year legal battle with their label Unicorn, which prevented them from releasing any new material, Black Flag binged in the mid-'80s, releasing a flurry of records that had even the most devoted fans scrambling to keep up. They did,

One of three LPs released by Black Flag in 1985, Loose Nut suffers from its creators' rampant profligacy. Too much of the record is under-rehearsed and under-ripe, yet when the group hits its stride, as on Henry Rollins' brutal "This Is Good," it's hard t

Hot on the heels of the live record came Loose Nut and In My Head, which showed significant improvement over My War and Slip It In. Henry Rollins and Greg Ginn were exploring by-now standard lyrical themes: hate, paranoia, loneliness, anomie, and violence