Post-Mersh, Vol. 3

The third and final volume of Minutemen’s retrospective Post-Mersh series is the most interesting and essential of the three, as it has several EPs previously available only on seven-inch vinyl. The first 10 songs include the band's initial releases: the seven-inches Paranoid Time and Joy from 1980 and 1981. Where other Southern California underground rock bands were macho and brutal, Minutemen were jumpy and intellectual. Their jittery brevity seemed not the product of aggression but of creative kineticism. Instrumentally and verbally, the trio crammed about much information as humanly possible into punk's abbreviated song structures. You can hear their music start to open up and blossom with “If Reagan Played Disco,” “Below the Belt,” “The Process," and “Joy Jam,” which assimilate shards of jazz and funk and even country music into the racket. Even as they pushed at punk's boundaries, Minutemen never abandoned the genre's essential urgency and noisy intent. The live recordings from The Politics of Time (tracks 16 to 42) affirm their ferocity, but the mini-set of covers that ends the album is where you really feel the poignant weirdness of their personalities.