Customer Reviews

No Need to Panic

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Looking back, this album doesn't sound like such a departure from the ultra-hardcore style of earlier GBH, but you'd think the disc never existed trying to find it on iTunes -- or searching for any acclaim for the recording.

I suppose the album was a "sellout" since the band had learned to play with slightly more sophistication than before, mixing in some Steve Jones-like guitar flourishes, producing a cleaner sound with sharper, non-shouted-along vocals and -- gasp -- slowing down the tempos ever so slightly (check out Desperate Times, Hearing Screams and Tipuki Thunder for decent examples). Sheesh, the last album cut even has Latin-ish rhythmic syncopation.

Heresy for the late '80s punk-by-numbers music scene, which recoiled at the slightest inkling of a hammer-on heavy metal solo even as thrash blurred the line between metal and punk (and guitarists ate the mainstream sound up).

This album made a big impression on me, all the more when I realized how "far" the band had come from its cookie cutter oi origins. This was the kind of music I thought deserved an audience, not Cinderella or Dokken or whatever.

But leave it to the holier than though hardcore scene to excommunicate the unbelievers.... I imagine the band is stuck on permanent retro rotation, forever grinding out pre-"No Need to Panic" tunes for an aging audience of intolerant regressives, much the way 7 Seconds eschews the genius "New Wind" album in concert, save the couple atavistic hardcore tracks on there, in favor of the earlier and "purer" sound. For more on that: [...]

The rest of us can enjoy deserving music on its own merits.

I liked this a little more than MM and B. first of all, there is a different drummer in this (he used a double bass drum so the style is a little different.), secondly the gang came up with some of the wackiest songs ever (gunning for the president, I shot the Marshall, Transylvanian Perfume and electricity through space), and finally, in the beginning of each song it's a little spoken word before the song begins. get this if you can.