Agnostic Front: Liberty and Justice For...

Agnostic Front: Liberty and Justice For...

1987

Relativity/Combat Records

Format I Own it on: Vinyl

Track Listing: 1. Liberty and Justice  2. Crucial Moment  3. Strength  4. Genesis  5 Anthem  6. Another Side  7. Happened Yesterday  8. Lost  9. Hypocrisy  10. Crucified  11. Censored


Oh yea, I didn't check the condition when I bought this and brought it home only to find it was covered in...I dunno....Drywall plaster, maybe? I had to chisel away a sheet of chalky rock, but eventually I located the black vinyl underneath and surprise, surprise, it plays great...Maybe the white crust helped to keep the record perfectly preserved...Hey, "White Crust" sounds like a pretty cool name for a Hardcore band...

Anyway, it's great to have a copy of this around the house...80's tough-guy music with thick, slabs of clear, pounding metal/hardcore... Roger Miret cleanly pukes out the vocals while the band alternates between speedy blur and black sludge...Highlights? You might have to listen to it fifty times before much of anything stands out, but I've always viewed the "The blood, the honor, the truth!" gang chant on "Anthem" to be a fairly definitive moment in hardcore...I also find the choruses of "Hypocracy" and their cover of Iron Cross' "Crucified" sneaking into my head here and there...

 To be fair, there are very few hardcore records that I listen to for their melodic content (Youth Brigade might fall in that category)...I listen to hardcore because I want barely-controlled chaos...A mad rush of adrenalin...I want to mindlessly flail around around while punctuating gang chants with my fist...If there's a catchy melody there, great...If not, it's not a deal-breaker...And I do honestly believe that nowadays they scan as "generic hardcore" only because their distinct style became the standard default for less imaginative bands..Not their fault... C'mon....That opening pledge of allegiance leading into the title track? Freakin' classic...

Despite my enjoyment of some of their later stuff, I consider the run of albums from "Victim in Pain" to "Live at CBGB" to be the band's peak...Where they went from "Punk/Hardcore" to "Thrash" to "Punk/Metal" and finally on "Live at CBGB" fitting the pieces all together and putting a point on the whole New York Hardcore thing... "Liberty and Justice For..." was vital in that progress, showing they could metal it up a bit but were not going to lose that hardcore sound that keeps bald kids in red suspenders stomping around in circles for all eternity...

Here's "Anthem"...Enjoy...