Okay, State Of Alert or S.O.A. was an early, but short lived hardcore punk rock group formed in Washington D.C. S.O.A. was active from 1980 to 1981. The band consisted of guitarrist Michael Hampton, bassist Wendel Blow, drummer Simon Jacobsen (Ivor Hanson being their second and last drummer), and a guy named Henry Garfield (later known as Henry Rollins) on vocals. Henry would join Black Flag after this band's demise and become one of the reconizable and distinctive persons in the whole hardcore scene. State Of Alert released just this one EP through D.C. based Dischord Records, but appearad on the hardcore punk compilation album "Flex your head", with 3 songs which were not on this EP. The album lenght is just 8 minutes and 20 seconds!! and it takes me about 2 hours to review it. There are 10 tracks on the EP. The songs are really short, about 40 seconds long each. Really fast and quite generic with the whole hardcore punk rock sound. Henry's hoarse voice is pretty unique in my opinion. He sings to attack, not for a nice performance.
1. Lost In Space
The classic one two three four!! starts the 40 second bedlam. Really simple as you would excpet from a 3 chord punk rock band. I guess this could aswell be played by just 1 chord or 1 finger. It doesn't matter. The song seems to be about having to deal with people who are proud of taking pills and thinking how cool they are but are just a joke. Ian Mackaye from Minor Threat, a friend of Rollins, said in the rockumentary *chough cough* American Hardcore that everybody was just singing about getting high and people were now looking for someone not singing about getting high and this song is clearly an anti-Jefferson Airplane song. "Who's gonna wind up dead - you!".
2. Draw Blank
Henry sings so fast i didn't think i was reading the right lyrics while listening to the song, but no the lyrics were the real ones.. The little less than 10 second noisy wtf "solo" is awesome and back to chorus and finito. I think the song deals with subjects like feeling alienated and other people wondering why the fuck are you so weird eh?. Well,
You'll never know
I'll never show
I'm not a book
You can't read me
Just one complain i have is that i wish it could be louder.
3. Girl Problems
"You have gotta lie through your teeth to make her think you are cool". That could be thought as an attack to mainstream which shows all the over-developed, over steroided or the pretty guys with their little trendy clothes and baseball caps or just simply: THE FAKES getting all the girls. And i've noticed some people believing this and acting totally different around a girl than with his usual group of guy friends and putting the guys down and trying to grow his mental penis. Like my dad, first seeming really charming but finding out that his just a narcissist and a jerk.
"I don't need no girl problems, I've got troubles as it is".
4. Blackout
Proboably my favorite song in the EP. Has real mean riff. Song deals with depression, alienation, feeling of being lost. The lyrics speak for themselves.
5. Gate Crashers
Starts way slower than the songs before. Slow, mean riff, but it ends quick and the insane drum playing kick in. The guitar isn't trying to catch up with the fast playing of the drums, but keeps it quite slow and this makes this sound neat.
This deals with one of the main things that gave birth to punk rock and that is when music got too friendly, too over-produced, too posey... your sick of the songs you hear on the radio all day and sick how long the guitar solos are, sick of the long hair trend, sick of the non creativity of all music and want to yell fuck off at their face. Theres still shitty popular music around. I don't think it'll go anywhere except worser and worser. Have to say bands like Deep Purple, Emerson lake and palmer, Fleetwood Mack etc were atleast playing real instruments. Today it's so much worse with.. ugh i don't even wanna type their names. I'm sure you've all heard of them anyway...
6. Warzone
They seem to use the same guitar sound in every single song. It doesn't sound bad, but with 10 songs on the album that sound pretty much the same can get pretty boring. Oh well fuck me i couldn't even play like them.
Someone yells BANZAI!!! at the beginning and then heeere we go. Henry sings which could be about any punk rock band. The band is a real attack, a real threat. They came to tear the place to the ground. They came to terrorize the popular culture and burn it and leave. It's funny considering the part, "They wear chains and they wear leather, They wear boots in any weather, Never dress up for a show, Look this way when they're at home". It's not like this anymore. Some morons thought punk is about looking like this and wearing that. NO they wore that shit daily. Now it's just another fashion trend. All the bands who are now like "yeaaah were so punk!" are so lame and cheesy it makes me wanna shoot them.
7. Riot
In the beginning you hear a guy laughing and Henry says "are you crazy, Wendel?" talking to their drummer. Wendel replys "What?".
The song is about rioting (wow really?!?!?!??!?!?!!!!!!!!!!). When they yell RIOT! during the chorus, i first heard it was OI! which had been a bit cheesy and i really doubt this wasn't what they really yell.
8. Gang Fight
Title states what the songs about. How pointless it is. The other side is to blame, it's never your own fault. Your friends get killed, well though titters. Shooting eachother is fucking stupid!!!!!! Why not attack together on something which could be meaningful like why is prozac legal but marijuana isn't?, PMRC... theres alot of things to do. Alot of things to get mad about. Some people rather shoot eachother.
9. Public Defender
The song is about our dear friends the pigs aka cops. I like the drum part during the chorus. All the cops i've have to meet have always been the same. Yeah it is a good thing to poke some freaks who do harm for innocent people, but not poke around the innocent people!!!! Like if they had nothing else to do. Give tickets just for fun, arrest people just for fun, beat the crap out of people for fun... fucked up.
10. Gonna Have to Fight
The main point in the song is: fight back, don't give up. You got rights.
My rating: 7/8
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