Random Records with Steve O

Agnostic Front - Get Loud!

When you’ve been a band for nearly forty years, how do you stay fresh, while also keeping the identity that you’ve built over the decades? The ‘godfathers of hardcore,’ Agnostic Front have found a niche that they employ on full-length number twelve Get Loud! – reminisce and honor the past. If the cover art, a clear throwback to 1986’s Cause For Alarm doesn’t give it away, songs like “Spray Painted Walls” or “I Remember” make it clear: Agnostic Front are staying true to themselves playing the music that has made them legends throughout the decades.

In just barely over a half-hour, Get Loud! blasts through nostalgia (“Spray Painted Walls”, “I Remember”, “Urban Decay”), politics (“Conquer And Divide”), calling people out (“Snitches Get Stitches”, “Attention”), the struggles of life and the passage of time (“Get Loud!”, “Pull the Trigger”) and an undying love for NYHC (“In My Blood,” and let’s be honest, “Spray Painted Walls” and “I Remember” are basically odes too). This has been a theme in some of their recent records, recognizing family (not the immediate kind, but the kind built through bonds of fellowship – magic ring not required) and unity and the band’s history. In an era when so many bands opt for throwback style, it’s somehow refreshing to have one of the originals do throwback even better, as well as taking the opportunity to remind you they know of what they speak firsthand. Just admire some of the old photos/video clips in the video for “I Remember”:

All the hallmarks of an Agnostic Front record are here. Roger Miret’s voice has aged well, definitely having its signature sound. For some reason I think of it as if Tom Waits was fronting a hardcore band. But the history is so personal. (Has anyone read his autobiography? Is it as awesome as I think it would be?) The riffs are heavy and hit hard and the drums blast along. Only “I Remember” eclipses three minutes, but they play with pacing wonderfully – look at how they slow down for the second half of “Isolated.” Gang vocals just make you want to shout along, and of course there’s the obligatory shout of “STIGMA!” (this time in “Pull the Trigger”), followed by a short and sweet solo by the legend Vinnie Stigma himself (seriously, that’s how he’s credited in the insert. And you know it’s true).The brilliance with Agnostic Front records is that you know exactly what you’re getting, they’re incredibly consistent, and you’re getting another entry into a classic discography.

Listen to Get Loud! here. And if you’re in the mood for some NYHC live, they’ll be playing at SubT with Sick Of It All in May. I’ll see you there.