The Derelicts Life of Strife LP
Wait…what?…this is that DERELICTS?! Then I put on the song “Life of Strife” and it all comes back. The DERELICTS were one of the go-to bands for hard-drinking and drug-taking punks in the late ’80s/early ’90s who were tired of the endless grunge singles coming out, especially as those bands were becoming the dull classic rock bands they used to parody. Without them, the DWARVES, the SUPERSUCKERS, and probably L7, I might not have made it through those few years. Totally hard to believe from the endless crap those bands have puked out since (except maybe L7) and, yes, this sounds dated as hell, but they sound…great! This is a spattering of new songs along with many re-recorded old ones which I don’t get the purpose of but the new songs fit right in and that guy can totally still sing like that! The revisited songs are strong and comparable but I much prefer the rougher-recorded old versions. How do I know that? Because I went back and listened to each and every one of them so you don’t have to. Cheers to these old men for surviving and being able to still pull it off, but you can pick up the great Going Out of Style comp as well as most of their old singles for pretty cheap if you care. This has a definite time and place for me and I can’t really see going back, but maybe there’s a Pabst-swilling, meth-shooting bad teen out there just waiting to discover this. Yay!