EXPLOITED, THE „Fuck The System”

Music: Punk/Thrash Metal
Duration: 35:00 minutes (13 songs)
Good songs: Fuck The System, Was It Me, and the rest…

Probably you'll get upset about me reviewing this “shit”, but I feel I really need to do this, because I believe that this is really cool shit.

Of course there is a huge gap between punk, and what is called punk. A lot of new bands claim to produce punk, but that turns out to be just some sort of happy-guitar-pop. Think of bands like Blink 182, NOFX, Greenday, Less Than Jake, Good Charlotte etc. However the mass calls this the real punk, it's not. Real punk is produced by bands like The Misfits.

Personally I'm a big fan of punk-metal hybrids (complete with solos). The Misfits, old Offspring, Pennywise and The Exploited are such bands. I used to like The Misfits a lot, before I discovered real metal. Although I like metal a lot more, I still believe the misfits are a decent band; they're no sellouts, and the music is good. They produce some sort of heavy metal punk hybrid. Pennywise is still one of my favourites, sounding a bit like “punk for the masses” with a good metal influence. Lyrics are not all about “girl here, love there” but contain deeper social and ethnic problems. It may sound a little popular, but all songs sound cool, it's a bit like the faster and more furious old offspring. The last one of the row is the most anti-commercial of this bunch, and definitely the best punk around: The Exploited!

The Exploited was once a typical old school street punk. The sort of FUCK-THE-FUCKING-GOVERNMENT-punk, which slowly got pissed of more and more. After a while it was too furious to be punk, and became some sort of cross-pollination between metal and street-punk. Nowadays The Exploited manages to create very enjoyable punk music, with a huge thrash metal influence (that doesn't forget they have a bassist, like many bands do). This mix sounds like nothing else in this world: extremely wild and with divine RAGING aggression! This Aggression can be compared to The Crown's, but only tracks like Satanist possess this insane wildness that is created during all of the songs on this album. Always at full speed, and with full speed I don't mean the speed that is created on the older Impaled Nazarene records (to name an extreme example), on which the drum and guitar-speed is very high, but the actual speed in which the songs pass by is relatively slow. No I mean real speed that stands parallel with wildness, chaos and rhythm. Yes, rhythm, that's what's one of the excellent things about this album, the rhythm section is actually godly! Combined with the extreme aggressiveness, this results in the hard fact that you want to jump around the room and smash all furniture into the walls! This is by the way the thing that the band did to many hotel rooms, and where they are “famous” about.

All riffs this album is rich are very simplistic, although rock solid. Most of them are melodic in a way, and very rhythmic (as I said), in short: very thrashy. The album contains a lot of solos, all shrieking and screaming as if they were performed when the devil was on the guitarist's ass! Check out those solos, they are some of the most vicious I ever heard, simply fucking great!

All songs on this album contain this blazing wildness except the last one, which is a more melodic and relatively slower song, (mid paced tempo) which is one of the best on the album. I'm also impressed by the vocalist; he uses a very special voice, one that stands on the border of punk, hardcore and is stinking of aggressiveness, but fits brilliantly on the thrash riffs. Although punk, hardcore may not be a common metalhead's favourite, believe me, this guy knows how to “sing”; he spits out every word with stunning articulation and easiness (I would almost believe he talks this way too in his daily life), and he doesn't even think of trying to hide his British accent (what gives the band a great original sound).

I must make a complement about the production too: everything sounds all so clear, yet tremendously dirty and filthy and raw! And the solos, they almost hurt your ears, magnificent (I thought slayer did that too sometimes)! By the way, I found many similarities between Slayer's “Reign In Blood” and FTS: for example the way the album is constructed, very non-commercial (like the band is). The last song is the best song on the album (and a relatively long one), so that the listener's attention is kept at the music until the last second (compare: Slayer's Raining Blood). The first song however, is a real killer too, (one-before-best-song) and is also longer than the rest, to draw this attention. The rest of the songs are shorter and major-cool too (just like on that Slayer-album). The album only takes to 35 minutes to go through, short, but very normal for an album that is mainly constructed out of 2-minute-long blasts of aggressiveness and adrenaline.

In Short: fucking great!! If you think punk is for school kids and can't be better, heavier, wilder and more aggressive than common (thrash) metal (or if you do not), then you should buy this AMAZING record!

note: 9.5/10

Tracklist

01 Fuck The System
02 You're A Fucking Liar
03 Holidays In The Sun
04 You're A Fucking Bastard
05 They Lie To You
06 There Is No Point
07 Never Sell Out
08 Noise Annoys
09 Violent Society
10 Why Are You Doing This To Me
11 Chaos In My Life
12 Violent Society
13 Was It Me