The Blamed - 21
1994, Tooth & Nail
1. Abuse
2. Help Yourself
3. Testimony
4. Drunk
5. Separation
6. A State of...
7. From Me To You
8. Rainbow
9. 3 A.M.
10. God Is Alive
11. Walkabout
12. The Ballad of the Blamed
This album is one of those treasures from the early days of Tooth & Nail... before they got all corporate and everything. The Blamed are raw and gritty punk rock with little polish. The production is similarly rough but in this case it actually helps the music. There's a definite Crucified vibe here but that's probably because Jim Chaffin is the drummer. I'm not sure it quite reaches the heights of some of the Crashdog albums in terms of genuine punk - but it's a good, fun album with some good hooks. "The Ballad of the Blamed" is an interesting song in that it's this melodic, acoustic number that really shows that the band has some genuine chops when it comes to their instruments. They released a second album called Frail but for some reason I never liked it.
Useless Fact: The Blamed contributed a song to the Sweet Family Music Stryper "tribute" comp.
Also another useless fact: this CD (and the re-issue of The Crucified's S/T album) was first advertised as a mail-order only release in early catalogs I believe. Once T&N started getting popular, you saw them both begin appearing in stores to fill the demand for T&N releases. That is how I remember it at least :)
ReplyDeleteThis one is a little harder to go back to than a later release, like "Give Us Barrabas" but it's still a good listen from time to time.
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