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Friday, March 22, 2013

Bad Brains: The Youth Are Getting Restless


BAD BRAINS: THE YOUTH ARE GETTING RESTLESS (1990)

1) I; 2) Rock For Light; 3) Right Brigade; 4) House Of Suffering; 5) Day Tripper / She's A Rainbow; 6) Coptic Times; 7) Sacred Love; 8) Re-Ignition; 9) Let Me Help; 10) The Youth Are Getting Restless; 11) Banned In D.C.; 12) Sailin' On; 13) Fearless Vam­pire Killer; 14) At The Movies; 15) Revolution (dub); 16) Pay To Cum; 17) Big Takeover.

A good setlist can work wonders. This is not brand new stuff — the recordings were taken from the same support tour for I Against I that gave us the Live album (recorded just a wee bit earlier), so it could formally qualify for «archival» status, except in this case, it worked more like a stop­gap while the band was busy sorting it out with H.R. — eventually replacing him with Chuck Mosley from Faith No More. Hilariously, the «stopgap» turned out to be far better than the origi­nal official live album, though...

...for an obvious reason — the setlist here is more intentionally targeted at the band's punk legacy than the metal one. Only three out of seventeen songs are from I Against I. The rest generally stem from their two first and best studio albums, which means speed, excitement, and, overall, a better application of their crunch than the slow, lumbering, and generally wasted metal riffage on that album. Furthermore, the recording quality at that particular show at the Paradiso Theater in Amsterdam was well on the level, and so was the inspiration.

Obscurities include the title track — a reggae number that did not make it on any studio album and is well worth knowing, mainly because of its clever integration of a smooth funky bassline into the general reggae structure, so that you never really know what it is you are listening to; and the unexpected synthesis of Beatles and Stones — a reggaeified medley sewn together from bits of ʽDay Tripperʼ and ʽShe's A Rainbowʼ, with additional lyrics from H.R. By all accounts, this is a novelty number, but the very fact of making a reggae medley of a Beatles and a Stones song counts as a novelty number that may just as well turn out to be unforgettable — even if, ultimate­ly, you just find it a stupid idea.

And overall, since we do have fabulous live versions of ʽRock For Lightʼ and ʽBanned In D.C.ʼ this time around, The Youth Are Getting Restless, with its high production quality and energy levels, may be a pretty damn good introduction to the band. What else is there to say? Absolutely nothing, so a fast, but firm thumbs up to it and let us move along.

Check "The Youth Are Getting Restless" (CD) at Amazon
Check "The Youth Are Getting Restless" (MP3) on Amazon

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