Monday, 5 January 2009

BLACK FLAG – SIX PACK EP (SST RECORDS)


BLACK FLAG – SIX PACK EP (SST RECORDS)

Six packs are amazing things.  They have two meanings (three if you include this song).  The first is likely to get you intoxicated in a potentially sociable manner while the other is a nod to fitness, to good health, to gearing your body towards getting laid.  All in all these are powerful personal movements, decisions and times attached to being and adventure.

“Six Pack” is one of Black Flag’s satire tracks.  I guess Greg Ginn would claim it to be satire but the humour is just too broad, too base to be that subtle.  On a visceral level, it hits like a sledgehammer.  The song’s structure is similar to “TV Party” with its call and response chorus and general loutish behaviour.  It is also a party song.

The track begins with a very sloppy (almost drunk) baseline accompanied by a very basic click track.  Then thirty seconds in the scratchy Ginn guitar drops in as eventually all explodes as Dez Cadena lurches in with a drunken vocal storm.  As the song arrives at the chorus it all has become quite life affirming in the most loutish manner imaginable.

Stepping up next is the equally incendiary “I’ve Heard It Before” which also benefits from an extended build up to one enormous pay off.  Once the song takes hold it kicks hard like a mull representing the kind of angered reaction the listener would dream of shouting at the authority figures in their life.  This was vicarious wish fulfilment.

Perfectly formed the seven inch closes with “American Waste”, a Chuck Dukowski penned zinger that stomps on the scenery before flying off into ether barely busting the ninety second mark.  Its all about identity and knowing where you fit on the food chain.

Three songs six minutes.  Long enough for a life to change.

Thesaurus moment: party.

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