Alright! This is sort of a safe pick to lead off on, an album that I know very well. It's a certified banger and a classic in my world.
Overall, this album is so unique and important. In real time, you can literally hear the influence that it had on everything that came after it, especially in the driving bass arrangements, the pretty guitar leads that pop in right where they need to, and the backing vocals that haunt and reinforce the melodies in all the right ways. You can hear Fugazi starting to form, but also you can hear so much of what punk would become. Probably doesn't need any more introduction, let's dive in.
This song is so sick. First thing you hear is the metronome ping, and the opening riff is heavy, driving, and classic. The guitars layer on each other to build it up before you're met with the vocal equivalent of a Mack truck plowing into a dealer's choice of any of the oppressive marble buildings that police downtown DC.
The youth crew-esque "what can I do?" gang vocal is a calling card of hardcore in this era and really gives you the feeling that you're listening to hardcore record right off the bat. I love this song for that reason. A great opener to a great album. Driving, powerful. Then you get an anti-breakdown chant into a two-step. Give them back.
This song starts a lot less melodically polished or organized up front than some of their catchier tunes. But, by the end of the first verse, you're starting to hear this really subtle tortured melody in the guitars.
The chorus breaks into what can only be described as a proto-Green Day hook, which is super short lived. Blistering rock guitar leads contrast against the punch and drive of the bass. More spastic hits of gang vocal. Another mini chorus. "But that's okay," you find yourself thinking "maybe I went a little too fast".
You start to feel everything around you start to fall apart as you're spinning around in a dirty music video where Robert Smith spontaneously combusts. "But that's okay." Powerful and spiteful finish.
Cool tune.
Bass line, front and center. Melody? Front and center. One of my favorite things about this album is that you start to hear all of the songs that came after it in every song. The abrupt rests, the descending progression that resolves. It literally set the stage for everything that came after for 30 years.
This one almost feels like it was limited by the drums, in a way that I think probably serves the song better than anything else would have.
The dissonant and beautiful guitars that hum along with "nothing seems to work out right" set the stage for a powerful vocal return. "I'm a failure". Full stop.
Rumbling machine gun drums and an ominous shine open this one up like a sunrise in Hanoi in 1969. Right into the fight. The verse sucks you in. The spite! "what a waste". A little bridge into muted guitars that open the second verse with a different feel. Same power. "I hid my feelings…" This track is a burner. 100 seconds of regret, spite and anger. Nuff said. 10/10
Drum roll, please. You don't know if the metronome sound in the intro is on purpose or not. Into this dark bass groove. "Life goes on and on". Kind of like post-goth dance party. Metronome comes back for a sec.
The lead guitars underneath of everything define this album, they just shimmer along behind the scenes. Love the melody on this one and you can totally hear Fugazi starting to happen in a lot of these songs as they jump around from part to part.
James Bond super spy intro. The lyrics in the first verse really reach out and grab you. A very straightforward groove here, nothing that you don't expect. They drop the title line and follow it with a sweet little riff in a vacuum before it breaks loose again.
This is such a sick song, but it almost feels too simple in the context of the album. All of the less structurally homogenous tracks that surround almost leave you expecting something less straightforward, but this one cuts right to the point and stand on its own as a top track. One of my favorites from them.
Eerie opening. Cemetery at midnight. "No more selfish tears." The rawness of his vocal ahead of what is really a beautiful series of little choruses is so impactful. Then you get a little schizophrenic laugh at all the little kids.
I can't get over the duality of the dark goth stuff and the beautiful shimmery guitar parts. This band sounds like the Cure coming of age in the shadow of the grotesque behaviors of a ruling class of elites in the global capital of extractive and oppressive empire. And also if they didn't suck. I love the Cure, but they do kind of blow like a fire in Cairo.
This is maybe a track that I've under-appreciated in the past. Great melody, but it's less intense than what you really want out of this album. This is more house party tempo / down tempo two step.
Great song but I'm kind of stuck somewhere in the middle on it. Have I not given it enough praise in the past? I never played this on the radio at U92. It's a good song, but it lives somewhere in the in-between for me.
You don't expect the punk beat at all here which is so cool. Sweet intro then it's 1&2&3&4&…. Then they hit you with this haunting backing vocal that's somehow Edgar Allen Poe and Blink-182 at the same time.
Somehow this is a straight-edge rip on fratboy jock bro brew-brawlers but also on gun violence and violence in general. "You'd hate yourself if you had the chance, I guess you already do… you fuck yourselves up every night." Legendary XXX line. I'm not SXE so I'll hold my peace on this one
Cool modulated guitar opener. This one, like almost all of these songs, is littered with quintessential cool little emocore lyrics. "Petty poets with poison pens forcing rhymes to get revenge." "I stare at things I don't want to see and selfishly assume they were built for me." "I am the fuck-up that I can't forgive"
This song has some of my favorite guitar work so far on this album, and it is definitely an ass-kicker. It's such a shame that I didn't really listen to this album in earnest until after high school. I would probably have a lot of bad tattoos in whatever awful font I've decided to use on this website this week. This record contains levels of angst that my middle school brain would not have been able to comprehend.
This is a banger. I used to spin this on the radio in college after the fellas at the FCC went to bed for the night. Cool opening riff. As an adult with a decent job and a savings account, this resonates probably more than it did when I was broke and pissed about it. "There are no winners. We all lose." Boom! Take that, capitalists. "You put yourself up for sale. You're all sold out." #relatable
This might be my favorite chorus on the album from a melodic perspective. And the little descending riff in-between "you put yourself" are masterful.
The back half of this album is so good.
You almost start to hear AFI in the opening of this one. Beautiful little guitar parts where you least expect them. Bass holds the keys to the song. Somewhat cryptic but relatable lyrics. No notes really. This song rules.
Hello dancefloor! "I don't like parties […] we smile, avoid unpleasant situations, maybe it will go away." Cheeky fuckers.
"It's the end of a fucked up year. There's another one coming! (Oh, shit!)." Again 80's goth makes it's presence felt but it's like a sick parody of it. At the beginning of this song, for a split second, you might think that you've accidentally started listening to U2 or The Police or some shit. Then, that degrades back into Embrace. Such a cool track.
"There will be no victory, no progress made, if we do not stand apart from the enemy […] Words are not enough."
A great way to say goodbye to the album. More Tom Delonge backing vocals (this is a good thing, surprisingly). It's crazy how pop this album can be while also sounding like a floor tom on a cold concrete garage floor covered in old paper trash.
Great track.
I honestly don't know how to describe this album in full. It's spastic, self-deprecating, spiteful, ironic, angry, regretful, powerful, and beautiful all at the same time. The lyrics are genre-defining. The hooks are powerful and infectious without ever feeling like radio bullshit. There will be many albums here that will be MY classics. This is not one of them. This album is a classic, you shouldn't need any convincing.