Impulse buys can bite you on the ass sometimes. Take this, for example. There are so many reasons why I wouldn’t buy this. But curiosity sucker punched me into stupidity. Here is this relevant anarcho-punk band from the early 1980s that was stepping on the heels of like-minded bands of the time period, like Conflict, Crass and Flux of Pink Indians. From 1983 to 1985, they released the Used, Abused, Unamused EP, Onward Christian Soldiers LP, Not on Her Majesty’s Service cassette, Brain Death EP, and the final kick in the gonads, The Filth and the Fury EP. All this is compiled on a discography CD titled The Motorhate Projects. I’m not sure if they released anything else until this point, but I would guess this is pretty accurate. They started out musically as average UK punk with politically charged lyrics, but grew musically individual which, at the time, only Conflict did better. The song "Evilspeak" from The Filth and the Fury (and which was also featured on the P.E.A.C.E. comp) is by far one of the best punk songs from the time period. Being the goofy high school kid at the time with my spiked hair, this not only spoke to me, but filled me with the aggression that I craved in my music. Now to this stinky gem now rotting in my record collection. Here are the logistics. A band has reformed after not releasing anything since 1985. I’m assuming they saw the success of other reformations around them. Another guess is they have not been involved in the punk rock scene for many years. I’m lead to this theory because of the music. The music is very generic and doesn’t represent even comparing to their early output. This shouldn’t be the case since the original guitarist and singer are in this incarnation. The guitarist should have at least shown some progression in his craft after all these years or at least maintain some semblance of his trademark style. The music just doesn’t sound genuinely angry or musically evil to me. I’ve only listened to the album once and was flabbergasted from what I was hearing. After the painful task of listening to the whole record, I dug through the collection to put on The Motorhate Projects. Night and fucking day or oranges and rotting worm infested apples, no comparison. If you have the slightest inclination on purchasing this release, be smart, ask the record store clerk to play the record for you before you get stuck with it. Cool cover art though. Live and learn.
–don (Go Kart)