Discharge – Why/Hear Nothing See Nothing Say Nothing
(Captain Oi!)
2CD
Out now available here
Captain Oi give the best of Discharge’s 80s output another reissue outing. Nathan Brown says this double CD set serves as a Discharge starter pack.
I still remember where I was when I first heard Discharge. The noise that blasted my ears as I heard the Realities of War EP simultaneously cut like a knife and smashed like a hammer. They changed everything. They blew all previous punk bands out of the water, just like the first wave of punk had done to the rock and pop that went before it. Some people couldn’t keep up and dismissed Discharge as just noise. Their loss. What a beautiful noise!
They got better and better with each of their first 3 EPs. Realities of War was a brutal introduction to their sound. Fight Back was fast AF on the title track, rivalling US hardcore, but still managing to throw out great melodies via the razor guitar and baggy sounding bass on tracks like War’s No Fairytale and You Take Part In Creating The System. They also included lyrics on the cover! Meanwhile Decontrol produced 3 singalong ragers.
Tezz’s battering drums (later known as D-beat) sparred with a burbling high speed bass attack and a guitar that pushed fuzz to the max. Street smart lyrics about war and society growled by front man Cal, and stripped back short solos were eagerly lapped up by listeners. The songs were short enough to cram 5 onto the Fight Back EP. Then the mini-album Why? hit the streets.
Why? took everything to another level. It was ground breaking. With a slight change of personnel, Tezz being replaced by Bambi from The Insane behind the drumkit, their sound became even more intense. Drums, guitar, vocals, bass: all of them pushed into the red. Louder, dirtier, faster.
Rainy’s bass as gnarly as Lemmy’s on Ace of Spades, working together with the apocalyptic drums and guitar tone to sound like a tank. Bones’ whining but brief guitar solos – sometimes just the scraping of strings – sounded like the scream of a stuka. Cal’s voice pushed to breaking point clearly giving it his all, his absolute frustration with war mongers shining through. Does This System Work? they asked, a rhetorical question. Why? includes perhaps my favourite Discharge songs A Look At Tomorrow, Ain’t No Feeble Bastard and Is This To Be but the whole thing is a masterpiece.
The cover was bleak – horrific disturbing visions of war. These days people sharing the cover of this record on Facebook get their image blurred or threats of a ban for going against “community standards.” War is OK but pictures of war are bad taste? Pffffttt.
I’ve often said I think those 4 records capture Discharge at their best. However, the perils of making such statements is apparent as you listen to the rest of their early work captured on this 2 CD set. It is hard to stick with a definitive claim of their best work with a constant exclamation of “Oh yeah, this one!” as another raging track hits the eardrums.
6 months after Why? they would change up again with new drummer Garry. 3 song EP Never Again was less chaotic. It was more cutting than bludgeoning, with hints of Motorhead in the title track. It was a signal of what was to come on their album Hear Nothing See Nothing Say Nothing, especially on Two Monstrous Nuclear Stockpiles. The haiku lyric machine was fully operational by now, sentences constructed in the manner of Yoda, stripped back to their essence. I will frequently play the B side by preference as Death Dealers is such a great song retaining some of the chaos of Why?.
If Why? was the height of rawness, then Hear Nothing, State Violence State Control was a more defined power, albeit with a similar approach to song writing. The ingredients refined, the edges tooled and honed. Bones’ guitar tone was heavier and his huge wall of sound battled for centre stage with singer Cal, whose vocals continued in the same raw, shouting style. Whereas on Why? the bass and drums had dominated, they now played a supporting role. Bones’ guitar solos were getting slightly longer but still not overblown and he frequently accentuated riffs with string bending wails.
As with Why? the whole of Hear Nothing is a behemoth of heavy and fast songs, but highlights include the title track, Protest and Survive, The Nightmare Continues, Drunk with Power, Meanwhile and Hell On Earth. Goddamit, just listen to the whole thing.
Hot on the heels of Hear Nothing, State Violence State Control was a less heavy, chuggy, catchy anti-police anthem which harked back to the earlier EPs in some respects but with layered wailing solos and hammer-ons. It was backed with the pedal to the floor Doomsday led by a motoring bass and sounding like it really was the end of the world.
Truth be told the writing was on the wall by the time the Warning: Her Majesty’s Government Can Seriously Damage Your Health 12″ was released. The title was nicked from a popular badge at the time. The Discharge arc had already passed its zenith and was descending towards the cataclysmic depth that would be 1986’s Grave New World. The songs on Warning are still better than some bands of the time but don’t stand up to the band’s previous work. I really like the track Warning, Rainy’s bass still doing it’s magic. The loss of Bones on guitar can be tangibly felt. Cal’s vocals are starting to shift to a higher register and are less raw. While the mainstream would probably applaud a move away from all that horrid shouting, that was what had made Discharge a literal roaring success.
The latest of many Discharge reissues, this two CD set brings together Why? followed by the first 3 EPs on one CD while Hear Nothing…is joined by the Never Again EP, State Violence single and Warning…EP. If you need a Discharge starter pack then this is it.
Captain Oi! still have the slightly more expensive Discharge: 1980-85, 4CD Clamshell Boxset available, but with this release you don’t get the supefluous extras. It’s also cheaper than buying the digipacks of each album on their own.
It’s hard to believe that any self respecting hardcore punk doesn’t have these releases in some form already, legit or not. These days it’s more likely to be mp3s rather than a home tape off your mate, of course. Any young punks curious about Discharge, this double CD set covers what you need to know, and you DO need to know Discharge. The Press Release hints at the intended new audience. “These are the songs that influenced two generations of metal with the likes of Metallica, Anthrax, Sepultura, Soulfly and Arch Enemy all covering songs featured on this release.” I guess the fact they influenced generations of punks and spawned hundreds of bands goes without saying.
The current incarnation of Discharge, which features originals Bones, Rainy and Tezz, is well worth catching live.
Available from Captain Oi!
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Words by Nathan Brown. You can read more from Nathan on his Louder Than War archive over here.
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