Black Face have announced their break up via Facebook, simply stating "... is dead. Fun while it lasted." The band formed back in August with Chuck Dukowski of Black Flag and Eugene Robinson of Oxbow and existed to to perform songs Dukowski wrote back in the My War era of Black Flag. The group managed to release the "I Want To Kill You" 7" on Hydra Head, but never played a live show in their six months together.

It would be hard to approach the subject of Black Face without first discussing the history of the individuals that comprise the band. The legacy of the players involved and their impact on hardcore and heavy music in general is undeniable - Chuck Dukowski, founding member of Black Flag, founder of SST records, and more; Eugene Robinson, founding member of Oxbow, Whipping Boy, author, professional journalist and fighter; Tom Dobrov, original drummer for Oxbow and The Stiffs; and relative newcomer Milo Gonzalez of contemporary rabble rousers Insects vs. Robots, and The Chuck Dukowski Sextet. Though the stature of all involved is considerable, it is Chuck's tenure in Black Flag and his contributions to the song writing process thereof that relate most directly to the form and content of Black Face itself. As an introduction to the band the lead off track on the debut single, "I Want to Kill You" serves as an appropriately violent first round. Comprised of cascading shards of angular guitars, stuttering figures of bass/drum interplay, topped off with Robinson's insistently murderous diatribe, the track feels at once vintage and refreshingly present. Following the A side's introductory battery is a sprawling beast aptly titled "Monster", a potentially polarizing track not unlike Black Flag's early forays into the realms of abstract and obtuse psychedelic punk. Though more subdued in pace and tone, the track proves no less menacing than its predecessor - a not-so-welcoming doorway into a dimly lit world of treachery and unrelenting pain. There is no overtly obvious catharsis in these tracks, no glorious climax, only sustained tension and the promise of greater horrors waiting at every further turn into the darkness. If this is a re-beginning for Dukowski and co, it sounds like a grisly end for the rest of us.

TOM DOBROV: drums CHUCK DUKOWSKI: bass MILO GONZALEZ: guitar EUGENE S. ROBINSON: voice