Bad Brains: Live

African-Americans who arguably invented hardcore punk rock in 1979 in Washington, D.C. with the blistering "Pay to Cum" single, the Bad Brains not only did it faster and better than anyone else, but they clearly had tired of that music almost as soon as they'd created it. So they made their own mutant version of hardcore, first mixing Jamaican sounds, and later elements of metal, into their sound. The quality on this live document may not be quite as stellar as one might like, but it still should be within the first ten hardcore albums you buy nonetheless; here are the Bad Brains at the height of their game! The soundtrack to a concert film, it appears to be a soundboard mix, which means the drums are louder than almost anything else. And the show is clearly so totally out of control that H.R. doesn't always sing right into the mic. These are very minor quibbles, of course, and until we can get our Way-Back Machine to actually work, we're more than happy with this swell document of one of the shreddingest group of shredders ever.