DOUBLE THINK

It's interesting to listen to DOUBLE THINK (and bands of their era) in the broader context of DIY punk and hardcore. Even though this demo came a mere decade after the explosion of hardcore, it shares more in common musically, lyrically and ideologically with bands that came twenty years later. While one could certainly argue that this means that punk and hardcore grew stale and stopped evolving, I like to think that punks found what they were looking for - the common bond that transcended dancing at a shows and listening to records, the sense that we really were all in it together and we were in it for the right reasons. Not that 1990's Slave To Machine is some posi "unity" anthem, but rather that the intensity and the attention to detail with explanations and artwork seized on something that new punks continue to seek out and desperately hold onto when they find it. I'm discussing an ideal here more than a demo, but DOUBLE THINK are all of the things I want punk to be...even if their DISCHARGE cover is absolutely bizarre.

SLAVE TO MACHINE