OFF! – OFF!

In a time when even your average beatdown-heavy 'hardcore' band sounds polished, pristine and conventional, OFF!'s self-titled debut in all its 17-minute glory is a brazen, full-on salute to the routine destruction – both self and civil – of the LA punk scene some 30-odd years ago. With Keith Morris (Black Flag, Circle Jerks) on pipes, the album is a crash course in how to use the four-chord weaponry of old today without sounding tired or contrived.

Steven McDonald (Redd Kross), Mario Rubalcaba (Rocket From The Crypt, Hot Snakes) and Dimitri Coats (Burning Brides) provide urgent, punchy slabs of angsty noise upon which Morris blurts some of his most pained and acerbic rants, with tracks like Feelings Are Meant To Be Hurt, Borrow and Bomb and I Need One (I Want One) proving some of the most exciting 50-second bursts you're likely to hear in this all-too-sedate era of modern punk rock.