Government Flu House Arrest EP
Warsaw’s GOVERNMENT FLU has been around long enough to still have a page limping on Myspace (!), and a lengthy catalog of solid, straight-ahead, early-’80s US-influenced hardcore. This five-song EP (their ninth!) spins like one of the best early No Way Records releases (DIRECT CONTROL, GOVERNMENT WARNING, etc.) where there’s no bullshit, no metal or art trappings, just concise, direct hardcore that maybe trawls the FANG/”end-of-the-LP-side” ’80s punk sludge here and there to bookend the speeding attack. Energetic jolts of fast hardcore more precisely played than ’80s bands in a more defined recording, the No Way comparison is apt, and the EP’s artistic design, with a big fold-out poster/lyrics sheet harkens to that great spirit and style of HC revival of the mid-’00s, but urgency and intensity overrides any retro nostalgia. Lyrics are shouted in English, confronting decisions of how to live life, self-definition, expectation and rules. Great EP, limited to 500 copies.
