OFF! – First Four EPs (2010) [Vice] // Grade: A

Listening to how hard Keith Morris goes on the entirety of First Four EPs makes me less afraid to grow old. The dude, and when I say dude I mean founding member of Black Flag and Circle Jerks and all around hardcore music godhead, may be well on the wrong side of 50, but no one seems to have told him.

OFF!, Morris’ new band with (deep breath) Burning Brides guitarist Dimitri Coats, Redd Kross bassist Steven McDonald, and Mario Rubalcaba, drummer from Rocket From The Crypt, kicks fucking ass. Do I hesitate to use the word supergroup? Yes, I do, because that implies some sort of victory lap type situation, a band that exists solely because all the members are famous. OFF! instead sounds like a brand new band that was always meant to play together.

For their first big release (coming in at a blistering 17 minutes) OFF! just released a collection of their EPs on Vice’s in-house label. Opening salvo Black Thoughts, coming in at an actually-sort-of-long-for-this-album one minute, starts with Keith Morris lamenting (or, perhaps more likely celebrating) that he “can’t stop/ thinking black thoughts!” I guess he really can’t. There’s not an ounce of lackadaisical pretend play going on here, not even a hint that any of this bloody aggression has to be put on at all.

Morris still maintains his venomous youthful bite, talking about “pissing in the punch bowl” on I Don’t Belong. I worried perhaps that he was going to have gotten more mature, too mature. But instead of age at all affecting his style, it’s instead just made him really really fucking great at it. Same goes for the rest of the band.

The whole thing is just tight as hell, with literally not a single second wasted. Mario Rubalcaba especially beats the shit out of his drum kit, holding together all the writhing ephemeral energy. Even the cover art by Raymond Pettibon rules. I may not have seen it coming, but I have no problem saying that Keith Morris has now founded the third great band of his career.

- Whole Milk