I feel like it's been a long while since I've reviewed a real punk album from the classic period, which from my best guess is about 1977 to 1986. Classic punk is a trio or quartet of rock musicians where one guitarist bangs out simple distorted power chords, the drummer thrashes out a 4/4 beat, and the singer garbles something... lyrics, random words, noises, whatever, as long as it sounds angry. One constant I've noticed about punk bands is the bass player is usually really good. I'm listening to (GI) right now and thinking, "You know, I'd like to hire that guy to play bass in my non-existant band." At the same time I'd like the singer to choke on whatever phlegm he had to cough up to create his signature voice.
I don't know what (the) Germs are going on and on about, but the singer sure sounds whiny. Here's a funny thought... If he added a bit more reverb to his voice he'd sound like a hair-metal singer. It's funny because punk is supposed to be about doing away with the excesses of rock and roll, whereas hair-metal is all about crazy excess.
"We Must Bleed" sounds suspiciously like another song I heard on this album, but it's not worth the effort to go back and listen to figure out which one. (The) Germs clearly weren't interested in making this album more than a washed-out distorted piece of junk where every song sounds the same, so effort on my part just doesn't feel like justice.
Also, "We Must Bleed" is an unusual 3-minute punk song that only gets to 3-minutes by extending out a closing jam session for more than a minute. I would call that anti-punk, but what's more punk than sticking up to The Man? In this case The Man is punk cliches saying you can't do shit like that on a punk song.
(GI) closes with a 9-minute slow blues-club style number. It reminds me of the closing number on Kick Out The Jams. Up to that point MC5 were pretty consistent with the sharp proto-punk rock, then they went noisy avant-garde psychedelic and shit all over everything punk eventually stood for. (The) Germs are sorta doing something similar here. I guess at the very least this is almost a song and not just junk posing as music. Well, it is junk, but there is a melody and beat. There's also a hint of avant-garde as some idiot in the studio randomly pounds on a piano and the guitarist just endlessly noodles. So very anti-punk cliche, which is almost a point in it's favor. Except for the fact that it sounds really really awful.
Here's a idea for people who want to play punk music... Your music might be more effective if people could understand what the fuck you are saying. You should especially attempt to be coherent when you have a piece of shit voice. 1 star.
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