2020/09/03 by David Carter, Ian Rogers · 1 citation
Arts and Humanities · Computer Science · Social Sciences · #Music History and Culture #Music Technology and Sound Studies #Media, Communication, and Education #Punk #Studio #Flag (linear algebra) #Visual arts #Art #Literature #History #Law #Art history #Political science
paper · doi:10.1080/03007766.2020.1807890
openalex publication_date 2020/09/03 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2025/11/06
In 1984, L.A. punk band Black Flag released My War. Coming three years after Damaged – a canonized classic of the hardcore genre – and following a period of legal dispute and touring hiatus, My War was diverse and polarizing; side two of the album featured three slow, long riff-heavy songs that run counter to the predominantly lean and fast signature sound of the band’s previous work and that of many contemporaries. With the benefit of hindsight, these tracks signaled punk’s reinvestment in heavy metal, precipitating new hybrid forms such as sludge metal, drone metal, and stoner metal. In this paper, we exhume a subset of this aesthetic lineage and discuss how it has informed a subsequent recording: Lysol by theMelvins. Through analysis of recorded works, we demonstrate how the sounds of side two of My War have been propagated and refined, highlighting the links between these idiosyncratic sounds and the pragmatic realities of low-budget studio production.