Black Flag: My War [SST]

Why you'll love it

This is the SST edition under the original SST 023 catalogue number, with Raymond Pettibon's cover drawing. My War is now counted among Black Flag's landmark records and fed straight into sludge metal, grunge, post-hardcore and math rock.

This edition

• SST catalogue number SST 023
• Raymond Pettibon cover drawing

About the album

After a long legal tangle kept them from recording under their own name, Black Flag came back in 1984 with something nobody saw coming. Greg Ginn had been listening to Black Sabbath with Dio, Saint Vitus and the old hard rock of his youth, and the band had rehearsed his new material for up to eight hours a day.

The lineup had shrunk to three for the sessions at Total Access in Redondo Beach: Henry Rollins on vocals, Bill Stevenson on drums and Ginn on guitar, also covering bass under the name "Dale Nixon." Side A races through six hardcore tracks, including "My War" and "I Love You," both written by departing bassist Chuck Dukowski, with Ginn's wild, noisy solos all over them. Side B is the famous part: "Nothing Left Inside," "Three Nights" and "Scream" each run past six minutes at a crawl, heavy as wet concrete.

Ginn, Stevenson and Spot co-produced it, and Raymond Pettibon's cover drawing became one of the most recognized images in American punk. The band grew their hair out to tour it, which in 1984 was considered a bolder move than the music.

Also at Kops: more Black Flag on vinyl · browse Punk

Tracklist

Listen

On SST (cat# SST 023), a reissue of the 1984 album.