Album: No Questions Asked
Artist: The Flesh Eaters
Released: 1980
Rating: 4/5
Link: http://www.mediafire.com/d
No Questions Asked, the debut of The Flesh Eaters, was released in 1980, containing 14 tracks and having a total runtime of 25 minutes. It was pretty much completely ignored and went out of print. 24 years later, the good people at Atavistic decided to reissue it with 10 bonus tracks, bringing the album's runtinme to around 45 minutes.
For those of you unfamiliar with The Flesh Eaters, they're made up of Chris Desjardins (usually referred to as Chris D), and whoever is currently backing him at the moment. On No Questions Asked, his backing band consists of most of LA punk legends X, who in 1980 were at their prime.
Musically, this album explores the same sort of punk/blues that X were exploring on their albums, but with a touch of The Germs' hardcore. Songs tend to be short, with few making it past the 2:00 mark. The songs are fairly simple, but the band all know how to handle their instruments well. The guitars usually bounce along in a rockabilly sort of way, occasionally going into harcore frenzies. DJ Bonebrake's drums anchor all the songs, keeping everything nice and steady throughout. The music is pretty downbeat, which fits Chris D's lyrics, which are obsessed with death and dying. Chris D's voice isn't your standard hardcore shout, instead, it's a little higher pitched but it gets the job done. It can seem occasionally annoying, but he avoids the problem for most of the album.
The only problems with No Questions Asked is that at 24 tracks, it's too much. It's nice to have all the singles added on, but by the end it starts to grow tiring. The terrible recording quality of the album doesn't really help.
Stil, for fans of west-coast punk, this one's a must.
Highlights: "Police Gun Jitters", "Ten Inch Razor", "Disintegration Nation"
By P. Segal
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