FUGAZI Fugazi (Dischord)

Fugazi’s eponymous debut EP was originally released in 1988. Context being all, it’s not hard to imagine the Washington DC band’s sound, with its antecedents in the Minutemen’s punk funk and Mission Of Burma’s  battering attack, landing like a nail bomb amidst the prevailing hair metal trend. Despite having the attitude that youth movements are made of, it’s not a particularly entertaining listen decades after the fact. There’s an honesty to its clattering, unencumbered production, but nothing particularly memorable here musically, although the gender politics of “Suggestion” and “Glue Man”’s bleak, monochrome psychedelia are at least interesting.

"Vinyl Remastered From Original Source Tapes”, says the cover sticker, and, as is the trend at the moment, it sounds alright if hardly spectacular. At least it has room to stretch out, the entire EP being barely 23 minutes long. A coupon provides, via a somewhat tortuous process of registration and selection, free high bitrate MP3 downloads of the EP’s seven tracks.

Home