Banging The Drum

Another day, another Dischord release...

Despite having been a fan of Scream for quite a few years, I never really felt overly interested in their third LP, 'Banging The Drum'. I'm not sure why this is the case. I think somehow I had tis idea that this was widely regarded as their worst LP, although not sure where I would have got this idea from. Also, I think that I previously thought that the cover art, which incorporates a different font for the band name, signalled a change in style, like a lot of hardcore bands went through in the late 80s as some kind of attempt to find wider commercial success. Whatever. The point is that I was never really bothered about this record, but my recent increased interest in Dischord stuff made me disregard all previous thoughts when I noticed a copy of this come up for sale in the UK recently.

What was immediately interesting was that, despite me partly rejecting this previously based on the front cover, a few years later and I look at it and think that it's fantastic. Ok, the band name doesn't look good in this font, but the artwork and the colour used for the band name looks great.

Musically, this (unsurprisingly) sits between 'This Side Up' and 'Fumble'. It's not really significantly different to either, and just marks in step in their evolution. So god only knows where I got my idea from that this record sucked. It's really good. Well, apart from the opening 57 second song 'Banging The Drum' which I find irritating and can't wait to finish. But yeah, this record is great and I am annoyed at myself for ignoring it for so long. Oh well, can't listen to everything I guess.