Yeah, the downside to this whole vinyl “renaissance” is the ridiculous price tags. Yeah, I know, 180-gram vinyl, faithful reproduction, blahdeeblah, but it doesn’t change the fact that it both limits the ability of the average schlubs to pick up a copy of a record to which they should have total access, and acts as a prime example of the fetishizing of ephemera by monied hipsters and record collector schmucks who weren’t around to collect it the first time around from subcultures they view as moribund and don’t really care to understand. That said, it is also admittedly very fuggin’ cool to see records like this on the format for which they were intended. Originally released on Posh Boy, Living in Darkness was Agent Orange’s opening, and some would argue finest, punk salvo—four tracks per side of proto-hardcore up to its eyeballs in the sun and surf pop thuggery that, along with other crucial releases by both peers and former members, became the template upon which the much-ballyhooed “SoCal Punk Sound” was built. From the siren-staccato guitar intro of “Too Young to Die” to the punked-up surf covers peppered here and there to the four-minute epic title track, this is the perfect soundtrack for folks who prefer their pop edgy and “like things that bite.” Whether or not it’s worth the twenty to twenty-five dollars I’ve seen it going for is a matter of personal choice, but it’s most assuredly worth the repeated listens that’ll inevitably occur. Limited to five hundred.
–jimmy (Drastic Plastic)