If you can remember back to March this year, you’ll remember it was the speed of things that truly surprised.
Like, one minute Covid-19 was this thing that was happening somewhere else, then literally within days, we were all sitting in our houses wondering what had happened as chaos descended.
Harley Flanagan and his Cro-Mags boys were meant to start their world tour on the 15th March. They were supposed to play with Body Count in a gig that was surely going to be incendiary. Two days before the show, at NYC’s Webster Hall, the Mayor announced a lockdown (strangely my last gig was Stiff Little Fingers the day before that), so after a livestream or two, the band figured out their next move.
And that is, essentially what we have now, in the shape of “2020”. Never a band to do things the conventional way, no matter how hard their hardcore is, these six songs – clocking in at 20 minutes 20 seconds – are what amounts to a punk/thrash/NYC hybrid concept album.
The reason that – for all their brilliance and harnessing of that distinctive NYC sound – I have always considered Cro-Mags a breed apart, is underlined by the opening song. “Age Of Quarantine” which clocks in at over five minutes. Terror this is not.
What it is, though, is an ominous deconstruction of the world around us. Bleak, nihilistic, unforgiving, uncompromising. The year of 2020 is never better summed up
That gives way to the unsettling sounds of the title track, and Flanagan’s vocals, and perceptive lyrics blaming the left and right for the chaos that happened. “Life On Earth” surveys the ruins, as it were. Ferociously heavy, the energy it gives off is righteously negative, which contrasts with the sentiment on “Violence And Destruction”. It’s almost reggae opening shows the melting pot that this exists in, before it pleads for more tolerance over strangely melodic vocal and thunderous music. It is typical of what this record does.
“Chaos In The Streets” is a thrash masterclass about the effects of the rioting in the US, honestly, this is so aggressive it verges on pent-up rage, before “Cro-Fusion” has echoes of the tight, taut, bass of Prong or Helmet, perhaps, and it is as unsettling as it gets.
That one has the feel of “end credits” if you will, and the record as a whole feels like the soundtrack to the most nightmarish, dystopian of horrors. This year nailed then. There are records you describe as “fun”. Then there’s this. This is nasty, harsh and brutal. You wouldn’t want it any other way.
Rating 8.5/10
