Bl'ast - The Expression of Power [Southern Lord - 2014]Southern Lord presents another monster album of archival material from the legendary west coast hardcore outfit BL’AST. In the waning days in the year of our lord 2013 the band released Blood!, an album that contained tracks from the mid-80’s thought to be lost to the sands of time. Still hot off their heels from that release, the BL’AST resurgence continues with The Expression of Power. Released as both a CD (with a 28 page booklet) or a 3 x LP (with extra material), The Expression of Power contains a previously unreleased version of their original full-length The Power of Expression. For those unfamiliar, BL’AST hailed from Santa Cruz, CA and played caustic hardcore punk. They were highly influential, yet unfortunately are often overshadowed by other west coast mainstays like Black Flag, the Circle Jerks, and the Dead Kennedys. The tracks that make up The Expression of Power are the original LP along with another alternate version of the album labeled the Track sessions. The vinyl version also includes an additional demo. So what’s this alternate version? Before finally settling on what would become their debut LP, BL’AST recorded 2 other versions of the album. What to say about this release that hasn’t been said already? It’s furious balls to the wall, no bullshit 80’s hardcore punk, that’s every bit as crucial as Damaged or Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables. Musically they’re mid-paced to fast as fuck aggressive punk with raspy vocals provided by frontman Clifford Dinsmore. The alternate tracks are remastered, yet as expected, are relatively raw sounding compared to the final album. 25 punk as fuck tracks in total.
Reissues like these with demo/alternate versions of tracks really bring me back to the days when I was first discovering hardcore and buying up these collected works albums on Lost & Found. Some great stuff, some redundant stuff, some sub par, but in totally great collections of music. If I’m honest I have to admit that the Track sessions were kind of redundant to me and I’m not such a diehard that I need to hear various versions of the same jams over and over (however great they are). That said I appreciate the care and attention Southern Lord gives to their archival releases, especially for a band as important to American hardcore as BL’AST.
   Hal Harmon
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