Despite the bickering and high-school level drama that’s been going on for practically four fucking decades with this band, the backstabbing (literally and figuratively), the rumors and the hearsay - let alone the personal politics and social media bullshit of late from one particular vaccine-averse vegan warrior - this record still stands alone upon the pantheon of hardcore albums. It has crossover appeal and could have made these guys rich if they didn’t stop fighting amongst themselves, having horrible record labels, and shooting themselves in the foot while shooting up the residuals. Whatever, it’s a good fucking record: bangers from start to end.
In the early 2000s JJ and Harley had temporarily made up and played sporadically. A fond NYC memory was seeing the Cro-Mags play at the shitty-ass Continental off of St. Marks with I think AJ Novello on guitar at the time. @_f.v.k_ and I mixed it up in the pit, and it was good times. I’m sure many of you reading this were also there. the next day I hopped on a chinatown bus back to Boston to see the A-Team’s record release show (the one with the giant ice cream sundae).