If you didn't live in California, Bl'ast was a group that people found from ads in Thrasher in the late 80's. They had the emotional intensity of My War era Flag but with the snottiness of the first Suicidal record.

Their sound was a lot more influential than they get credit for, and there was an actual kind of snobbery towards Bl'ast from people like Henry Rollins and Greg Ginn who looked down on the younger group as copyists. But I'd take "The Power of Expression" over records like "Family Man" any day.

Their vibe was more innocent and positive than the Flag of the time and I liked that. Sample opening lyric here: "Time to grab reality by the balls / Daring to ask why before the future falls".

The records were recorded pretty badly but that only added to their charm. They appealed to that scrappy genre of skateboarding where everything had a screaming skull on it, with Bullet 66s, strictly Independents and layback grind combos on curbs. There were no girls attracted to that genre of skateboarding, ever. Believe me, I lived through it.

What's great about this long-lost recording is that Dave Grohl has totally maintained the scrappy, lurching, intensity of Bl'ast, but has added this great bottom end of modern rock "welly." Does that word make sense to Americans? It means "oomph."

Did Greg Anderson make the sleeve have a Sabbath-y goth vibe to it that doesn't really fit the original Bl'ast aesthetic? Sure, but it still looks cool. Thank god they didn't update the logo because it's one of the best Cali hardcore logos, second only to Suicidal.

-Andy Capper