52 Albums That Shaped My Life - #32

Rollins Band – Life Time

(Texas Hotel Records, 1987)

Do Not Buy the album here... because it is very difficult to find

Henry Rollins is a subcultural icon and touchstone for an entire generation of heavy music fans longing for the anger, cynicism, and intelligence of early punk.  In a decade renowned for its burgeoning materialism, greed, and Charlie Sheen in suits, thrash metal captured many of those fans in its underground scene and went on to become the driving force behind heavy music moving in to the 90s.  But punk and hardcore were still breathing and burning a level further underground with bands like Minor Threat, Bad Religion, The Dead Kennedys, and Henry Rollins’ own Black Flag leading the way for a collection of fans who watched many of their favourite bands break up or just disappear.  In fact, in leaving Black Flag in 1986, Rollins may have flirted with alienating the very scene that he was helping to keep alive.  But his solo band debut, produced by Minor Threat and Fugazi main man Ian MacKaye, captures all his hardcore aggression and punk spirit, and moulds a whole new bluesed-out foundation for his razor-sharp tirades.  Life Time is throat tearing, vein bursting, macho posturing, thought provoking, inspirationally angry heavy music from a man who now travels, reads, writes, and speaks in the name of self-enlightenment and equality.

Opener “Burned Beyond Recognition” pulls no punches lurching straight in with a vicious drum roll and Rollins’ patented screams of “yeah yeah yeah”.  The rhythm section immediately feels thicker and heavier than Black Flag with the screeching punk sound of the guitar often sliding off it to give Rollins’ shouts, screams, and roars centre stage.  Despite the vocals dominating the song, it is evident the Rollins Band musicians are potent.  Chris Haskett, Sim Cain, and Andrew Weiss balance their sounds so perfectly, and MacKaye has an incredible ear for punk dynamics, ensuring that every note is punched in to your ears.  The intensity doesn’t let up on “What Am I Doing Here?” in which Weiss’ unrelenting bass plucking will grab you by the neck and shove your ears right in Rollins’ gaping maw.  It’s a straightforward tale of alienation but, as with everything Rollins does, it is delivered with unwavering conviction.  Even the comparatively wandering experimentalism of “1,000 Times Blind” is confident and slams you against the wall with huge explosions of power.  There is no room for uncertainty on Life Time and, in true Rollins style, no life time to waste.

The first true highlight of the album is “Lonely”.  It is more reminiscent of Black Flag with its direct riff, percussive bass and simple structure, but will feel familiar to those who know Henry Rollins from his “big hit” video for “Liar”.  The aggressively cynical take on human relationships and the cutting delivery are attractive and repulsive in equal measure, but there’s no question the performance is breath-taking.  Chris Haskett’s guitars crash in to Sim Cain’s drums throwing shrapnel in all directions, piercing the hearts and minds of unprepared listeners.  If you weren’t on board before this, you are now, and so begins this album’s stretch of focused brilliance.  “Wreck-Age” shakes you with its pulsating rhythm and dystopian world view before dumping you at the unforgiving doorstep of “Gun In Mouth Blues”.  It’s an almost indescribably intense track, building from a bare and gently drummed intro to frightening crescendos of screamed croons or, from now on, “scroons”.  Henry Rollins is for 8 minutes a scrooner who lays bare the anger and frustration of some disaffected everyperson in a style not unlike Peter Finch in Network.  It is musically simple, but the constant burning anger that feeds its existence and sudden outbursts is overwhelming, and will have even the mildest listener screaming along.

“You Look at You” and “If You’re Alive” keep the intensity flowing, but it’s “Turned Out” that provides the album’s next highlight.  Led by Rollins’ confidently spoken verses and more stirring screams of his favourite word “yeah”, it has more shape to it than some of the other tracks, and gives you the impetus to really build in to the heavy chorus.  The bridge section truly feels like the album has succumbed to its own heaviness.  And on the original release that is, in fact, the case, as it was the last song.  For those of us who came to the album by the time it had received reissue treatment, the Do It EP tracks had been attached to the end allowing Rollins Band to kick us in the head three more times on Life Time with what must be Rollins’ personal anthems, “Do It”, “Move Right In”, and “Next Time”.  The cover of Pink Fairies’ “Do It”, in particular, gives you the basic Rollins ethos: get shit done.  He wants you to do, experience, live, learn, change, mess up, try again, and never forget that your life is not for anyone else to live.  Witnessing all he’s done and experiencing the intensity of the man, it seems as good an ethos as any other.  Do it.