Vida
Artist: Dc3

Though Dez Cadena will probably always be best known as an early member of Black Flag, his work with DC3 explored much more interesting musical territory. The band's final album, Vida, has a wide-ranging and fanciful character, touching on blues, Hawkwind space rock covers, jazz, even a quirky hard rock interpretation of an obscure Groucho Marx... Read More

Die for the Government
Artist: Anti-Flag
Community Score: 7.54

Admittedly, it's strange that an old school-sounding punk trio would criticize punk scene denizens thusly: "Covered in leather, or plaid patches, or metal studs/Your hair is dyed or spiked with glue/You only talk to those who look and act the way you do/You scoff at how the cops treat you/But they're no worse than dicks like you!" ("Punk by the... Read More

Kill the Musicians
Artist: Screeching Weasel
Community Score: 8.00

A pretty handy release that covers all the unreleased and hard to find material from this influential Ramones-esque pop-punk band. But considering that a majority of these tracks were recorded between 1989 through 1995 at various studios, the sound quality and style blatantly vary. For example, the first several tracks of Kill the Musicians... Read More

Growing Up
Artist: Hi-Standard

Just because that Fat Wreck Chords sound of slap happy, galloping pop-punk has been overdone doesn't mean that it gets stale; it all just depends on how a band can make this genre fun again. Take Hi-Standard for example, sure they epitomize on the Fat sterotype-except for the whole being from Japan part- but it's just so hard not to crank... Read More

Gross Misconduct
Artist: The Hanson Brothers
Community Score: 5.50

Named after the infamous hockey-playing brothers from the Paul Newman classic Slapshot, the Hanson Brothers are basically Nomeansno paying tribute to the Ramones. But instead of having 17 tracks of cover songs and nothing but, these guys play in the exact style of their heroes: verse-chorus-verse, three-chord guitar punk with really silly... Read More

Zen Arcade
Artist: Hüsker Dü
Community Score: 8.51

In many ways, it's impossible to overestimate the impact of Hüsker Dü's Zen Arcade on the American rock underground in the '80s. It's the record that exploded the limits of hardcore and what it could achieve. Hüsker Dü broke all of the rules with Zen Arcade. First and foremost, it's a sprawling concept album, even if the concept isn't... Read More

Blood, Sweat & No Tears
Artist: Sick of It All
Community Score: 6.00

This is the album that epitomizes the sound of modern New York hardcore. Along with the releases of East Coast legends Youth of Today and Gorilla Biscuits, this is another album that contributed to the spawn of a million bands today to play faster, heavier and incorporate a breakdown segment in each of their songs. But hardly any of those clone... Read More

Eight Miles High/Makes No Sense at All
Artist: Hüsker Dü

Eight Miles High/Makes No Sense at All combines two singles Hüsker Dü put out when they were at the height of their powers. Their fantastic rendition of "Eight Miles High" was backed with a live version of "Masochism World," and the marvelous "Makes No Sense at All" was backed by Sonny Curtis' "Love Is All Around," the theme from the Mary Tyler... Read More

Flip Your Wig
Artist: Hüsker Dü
Community Score: 8.45

Spot -- SST's house producer who manned the boards for Zen Arcade and New Day Rising -- didn't produce Flip Your Wig, Hüsker Dü's second album of 1985, and the difference is immediately noticeable. Everything on Flip Your Wig is cleaner and brighter than on its two immediate predecessors, which is appropriate, considering that Bob Mould and... Read More

New Day Rising
Artist: Hüsker Dü
Community Score: 7.52

For New Day Rising, the follow-up to their breakthrough double-album Zen Arcade, Hüsker Dü replaced concept with conciseness, concentrating on individual songs delivered as scalding post-hardcore pop. New Day Rising is not only a more vicious and relentless record than Zen Arcade, it's more melodic. Bob Mould and Grant Hart have written tightly... Read More

Mockingbirds
Artist: Mockingbirds

Modern-day power-pop can often err on the side of being too reverent, choosing to ape the holy trinity of Big Star/Raspberries/Badfinger instead of breaking new ground. That's not necessarily a problem, however, since both guitar-pop bands and their fans place a greater emphasis on craft than any other underground music, but it does make the... Read More