As a followup to our Blatz review from last week, here's a look at Silver Sprocket's other big Bay Area punk artifact reissue: Filth's Live the Chaos. Like Blatz, Filth played crusty punk/hardcore, with maybe a little less musical flexibility but a more serious and angrier slant about things.

The four-song 7" opens with "Today's Lesson." I, and likely a slew of others reading this, know this song best from AFI's Shut Your Mouth and Open Your Eyes. And you know what? The original rips every which way, too. The three other songs here, while not quite matching up to the simple, stripped-down ferocity of the opener, are still hoarsely screamed, fleshed-out and miserably bleak tracks that are effective in their own way. "Hate" has this ambitious tempo change and this frustrated, snotty bark; lyrically, it's a little embarrassing in terms of failed-relationship transparency, but it's sure honest.

Also, I feel like I hear some basslines in there that Filth's bassist might have lifted from Matt Freeman; Operation Ivy had broken up shortly before this was originally released, if I'm not mistaken. Maybe he didn't realize they'd be expanded in full effect shortly thereafter.

A very solid little slice of punk history.

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Today’s Lesson
Freedom