Friday 6 July 2012

Life Sentence-s/t LP

I haven't heard this LP since the late 80's and my memory of it was sullied by their second (and pretty poor) LP which I did own for a short while before selling or tading it on. Anyway years and years later I managed to bag a copy of this record which I had been meaning to track down for ages anyway. Although recorded/released in 1986 you'd think that it was at least 3-4 years older by listening to it. Fewer bands at that point were playing straight up fast hardcore as many were either going crossover (not a bad thing) or doing the post-hardcore weird thing (not good). Yet here were Life sentence dishing out the pure stuff. Despite Lar Ulrich of Metallica sporting one of their shirts they never did get the same recognition or interest as say, the misfits who Metallica also endorsed (and let's face it despite their already cult status the Misfits wouldn't become the enigma/legend/merchandise machine if James Hetfield & co hadn't have sported their shirts and raved on about them in the late 80's when they had already broke up). Even today this band remain largely overlooked which is a huge shame. Fans of straight up fast old school should be rocking it. Hell knows it's taken me long enough to get involved. That said, I'm still giving their second album a wide birth.

2 comments:

Across Your Face said...

Man, I love this cover art! Sometimes the simpler the better, it just works

Mark-Sandwell said...

You're totally right. Less is indeed sometimes more.