I saw these dudes in Green Bay at Kutzka’s Hall in ’88 or ’89 when they were touring in support of their LP The Side Effects of Thinking. (I believe that I have my facts straight; if not, may the Rev. Nørb correct me sternly.) They were a fucking stellar live band, so I bought the original pressing of the record that it is now my solemn duty to review, but, for some reason, the record was always a disappointment compared to what I remembered live. That view lasted for about ten years, at which point I gave the wax another concerted listen and my God! how impressed I was. I do believe what I was tasting was a four-year residual from Boris The Sprinkler’s split 7” with ‘em. (The Rev. Nørb was sternly rebuking my idiocy even then.) What a fool I had been for ten years of failing to appreciate primordial value in the crispy riffs of Moral Crux! Hoo-boy, was I a dumbass. I just hadn’t turned it up loud enough. I’ve been paying for my sins, though, spending the last ten years in a makeshift punk rock Purgatorio in which the D’s on my forehead (for “dumbass”) are erased by singer-man James T. Farris only after great tribulation and penance on my part. If you’ve heard Moral Crux before, there’s not new much that this re-release offers; the CD has some bonus stuff that sort of seems live, but sort of not at the same time. So far as I can tell, the LP is a simple re-issue of the original on a new label, and they’ve even included the original insert. And if you’ve not been graced by the clean and tight no-frills punk rock of Moral Crux, here’s your chance at redemption. But make it loud so as not to be the lame bastard that I was for most of the ‘90s.
–Eric Carlson (Jailhouse)