BAD BRAINS “Build A Nation”
Saying “I like BAD BRAINS but I could do without all of the religion in their songs,” is like saying, “I love BMWs, but I can’t stand all of that German engineering.” At this point in BAD BRAINS’ illustrious career, you simply cannot have one without the other. Build A Nation, the band’s extremely anticipated new full-length, and first hardcore punk release in more than a decade, fulfills the promise of BAD BRAINS playing riff-tastic, scorch-the-fields hardcore with the same kind of energy that made them legends in the early 80s. Of course, this comes with a bit of an expected catch – one third of the material on Build A Nation is drawn out reggae and dub, which is somewhat maddening, but nonetheless an integral part of what BAD BRAINS has been, almost from the start. Build A Nation is truly an album of pros and cons:
- PRO: For a bunch of dudes hovering around 50 year mark, there’s no doubt that they can still crank the tempos up to whiplash speeds. And the instrumentation on the reggae and dub material is no joke and supremely infectious.
- CON: H.R.’s vocals are mostly indecipherable and it appears that the recording intentionally buries them at times to hide this element. I know it’s absurd to expect the same kind of performance delivered 25 years earlier, but on a number of tracks, H.R. is barely keeping pace.
- PRO: I don’t know how much Adam Yauch actually produced Build A Nation, but between his direction and engineer Matt Marinelli, this album retains a lot of 80s hardcore authenticity in the tone of the guitars and the capturing of Darryl Jennifer’s back-up vocals.
- CON: This is more of a subjective critique, but I would have liked some lyrical content that wasn’t so Jah-centric. Given the band’s history and connection to DC, Build A Nation is somewhat of a lost opportunity in that regard – though the band’s spiritual grounding and peaceful convictions shouldn’t be swept under the rug.
If you claim ownership of the classic self-titled ROIR release and the SST classic I Against I, then purchasing Build A Nation is a matter of little debate – this album should not let you down. If you fall outside of that spectrum and are wholly new to the band, start with the classics and then approach this one with an open mind.
Megaforce
