No System – Dead Bands Tell No Tales

Growing up in the Boston area Al Quint of Suburban Voice Fanzine was seen as a pillar of reliability. If you went to just about any show worth mentioning he was there and was always friendly and willing to talk to anybody. Local punks would say things like "I want to be Al Quint when I grow up." In a small scene where being twenty one and still into punk rock is considered a major accomplishment Al sticks out as the guy who not only started going to shows before most of us were born but has always stayed active, whether it was editing the only long standing fanzine of the region, booking shows, or DJ'ing at the local college radio station. For a long time what few people knew about Al was that he had played in two bands in the 80's. One of which was No System, which also featured Mike Gitter of XXX Fanzine.

What's strange about this record is not only did it just recently come out twenty four years after it was recorded, but the  recordings themselves were done after the band had broken up and with the members of PTL Klub (Boston shockcore mini legends) on guitar, bass and drums rather than the original members of the band. Regardless of the strange circumstances of this record coming into print the tunes here are very solid and in the vein of bands like the FU's, Negative FX, and early Jerry's Kids, who Al had covered in the early issues of Suburban Voice. In fact had No System been an active band in 1982 rather than a few years later perhaps they would be remembered in the ranks with Mike Gitter's XClaim records cohorts.

"Symbols of Hate" kicks things off with a hard rock inspired intro and then turns into a classic style Boston hardcore thrasher. The vocals throughout the recording have a cool reverb to them and while the quality is definitely lo fi all of the instruments are audible. For the most part everything here is pretty standard fast hardcore, but the pace does slow down to a mid tempo for "Industrial Robot." "Vigilante Song" brings Impact Unit to mind. The cover of Discharge's "Doomsday" is a nice touch and Al wrote some pretty in depth liner notes that may take some people longer to read than it would for them to listen to both sides of the six song record.

Band MySpace: www.myspace.com/nosystemhc

Record label: www.myspace.com/nowayrecordshc

-Ditch-