#408 The Germs - (GI)

I got this ages ago, and realized I'd never actually listened to it for some reason - probably one of the biggest punk albums I've never heard.

Harder, faster, angrier than most of its predecessors, this is a shouty, thin jag of proto-hardcore that's place in the canon is well-deserved. The sloppy rage of the Sex Pistols and the hookiness of the Buzzcocks collide, everything is faster and more furious than either, planting the seeds of albums like Bad Brains and Raw Power to come.

The songs are actually a lot of fun, for the most part, charmingly messy, full of flubbed notes, missed beats and gutteral, yowling stumbles. There's a Minutemenesque balance here, with the drums, guitars, and bass taking their turns to rise to the fore, always with Crash's tortured, torturing wailing slathered over top.

There's also what I'm going to indulge in calling a proto-post-punk moment: the 9:30 closer, coming after 15 tracks running about 2 each. Building on early Stooges and predicting Liar's This Dust That Makes Mud, it's an early example of exploring the "punk" space, pissing the audience off by spitting in the face of notions of pacing and engagement. Much as with the Liars track, its a hint that these guys were in on the joke, that they might have more tricks up their sleeve than playing fast ad hard. Shame that, in the Germs' case, we never got to find out what they might have done next. A weirdly fascinating album, and awfully listenable for how ugly it is 4/5

You might like this if: You like punk, and you like is sloppy, fast, dumb, and smart.