Blight - Detroit: The Dream Is Dead

Who the fuck is Blight? I hadn't heard of them before receiving this, and chances are, you haven't either. Unless you are a staple of the Midwest hardcore scene in the early 80s, then it's doubtful that these Michigan-ites' music has ever crossed your ears. And, chances are, if you had stumbled across them, you'd remember. Peruse the accompanying liner notes to Detroit: The Dream is Dead, and you'll stumble across flyers for long past shows in which Blight shared the stage (or more likely, floor) with seminal early hardcore groups from Gang Green and The Meatmen (vocalist Tesco Vee sang for both Blight and The Meatmen) to the Dead Kennedys. Sounding like a wacky amalgam of The Fall and The Ex attempting to create noisy, industrial American hardcore, Tesco's vocals are mostly indiscernible Not thrashy hardcore, and not moshy hardcore--it's not even fast. Blight's music is droning, bass pulsating, sonically nausea-inducing if you listen to it for too long, and pretty much all-around fucked-up. Amateur-ish musicianship only lends itself to what Blight was doing, and had they been accomplished at their instruments, these songs wouldn't be as mind-boggling or bizarre as they are. Detroit: The Dream is Dead culls from Blight's brief stint as a band, having released a mere one EP (which was a 7" on Touch & Go originally, by the way), also includes some demos and a live set from a Detroit show with Jello Biafra & Crew back in the summer of '82. Twenty tracks total, all dripping in sludgy basslines, guitars awash in feedback, Tesco's electric trumpet chiming in awkwardly at the most inappropriate moments, and sounding like nothing else being made at the time or since. [www.touchandgorecords.com]