Rancid: Rancid (30th anniversary edition, splatter vinyl) [EPITAPH]

Why you'll love it

This 30th anniversary edition comes on limited splatter vinyl. It's the debut that launched one of the bands credited with bringing punk back into the American mainstream in the mid 90s, with more than four million records sold since.

This edition

• 30th anniversary edition
• Splatter vinyl
• Limited edition

About the album

Tim Armstrong and Matt Freeman had grown up together in Albany, California, and had already helped make punk history once with Operation Ivy, the ska punk heroes of Berkeley's 924 Gilman Street. When that band ended, the two regrouped with drummer Brett Reed as Rancid, and this is the first thing the trio put on tape, with Donnell Cameron producing for Epitaph.

It is fast, tight and hungry, sixteen songs that rarely pause for breath. "Adina" and "Hyena" set the tone, "Rats in the Hallway" and "Detroit" snarl, "Animosity" and "Outta My Mind" race past in a blur, and Freeman's bass runs all over "Union Blood" and "Get Out of My Way." The East Bay grit is there in every chorus, and Armstrong's growl and Freeman's barked backing vocals already sound like the band that would soon fill much bigger rooms.

Lars Frederiksen joined as second guitarist on the tour that followed, and the line-up that made Let's Go and ...And Out Come the Wolves was born. Thirty years on, the songs are still short enough to play the whole of side A before the kettle boils.

Also at Kops: more Rancid on vinyl · browse Punk

Tracklist

Listen

On Epitaph (cat# 86428-1), a reissue of the 1993 album.