AMG Review of Not So Quiet on the Western Front: Alternative Tentacles

Rick Anderson
All Music Guide

Originally issued as a two-LP set in 1983, this is one of the defining documents of the West Coast punk scene. (A pronouncement like that would have made most of these 47 bands throw up, but it's still true.) As such, it was also hardcore punk's swan song, arguably the last relatively unselfconscious expression of a naively nihilistic and homogeneously noncomformist youth subculture that was designed to fall apart. Of the bands represented here, which ones still exist? None, although Flipper and the Dead Kennedys have secured a place in pop music history and there may still be shreds of Millions of Dead Cops (aka Multi-Death Corporation, aka Millions of Dead Christians, aka More Dead Cops) touring around. It would go against the communalistic spirit of the thing to point out highlights, of course, but Bad Posture's charmingly acronymic "GDSMFSOB" is worth noting, as are Flipper's sludgy "Sacrifice"and M.A.D.'s "Holocaust." "Collapse," by Ribsy, clocks in at a nice, succinct 48 seconds. Try not to feel guilty for getting nostalgic.