Album: No Control
Year: 1989
Rating: 95/100
This album is, to put it quite simply, timeless. In Bad Religion's discography it sits slap bang in the middle of a hat-trick of great albums (the other two being "Suffer" and "Against the Grain"). In this respect, it works beautifully as the middle part of a superb, albeit unintended, trilogy. Not only that, along with "Milo Goes to College" by the Descendents and "Energy" by Operation Ivy, it helped lay down the basic groundwork for every SoCal punk band in the 90s.
In spite of the fact that it clocks in at just 29 minutes in length, and that it's not wholly different in feel from its predecessor, "Suffer", this works completely in favour of "No Control". The songs come flying at the listener thick and fast, some of them barely a minute long, but when your lead singer and lyricist is Greg Graffin, that's no problem, as the songs more often than not turn out to be as catchy as they are intelligent; see "Change of Ideas", "No Control", "I Want to Conquer the World" and "You" as shining examples.
What "Reign In Blood" did for thrash metal, "No Control" has done for punk rock. It opened up countless possibilities to scores of bands who needed a blueprint to adhere to, it established Bad Religion as genre leaders when it came to punk rock, and it put "No Control" up there with "London Calling" as a punk rock standard. Absolutely essential listening.
Track list
- Change of Ideas
- Big Bang
- No Control
- Sometimes I Feel Like
- Automatic Man
- I Want to Conquer the World
- Sanity
- Henchman
- It Must Look Pretty Appealing
- You
- Progress
- I Want Something More
- Anxiety
- Billy
- The World Won't Stop
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