1983. The East and West were engaged in the cold war, economic collapse loomed just around the corner, democracy was slowly being strangled by Reagan and Thatcher, Orwell’s vision of 1984 loomed large on the horizon and Verbal Abuse recorded their seminal album, “Just An American Band”. Having moved from Texas to San Francisco in 1981 and subsided on a diet supplied by soup kitchens and whatever else they could lay their hands whilst playing shows with MDC, The Dicks and The Big Boys, Verbal Abuse epitomised the term Hardcore. Theirs was a sound born of fury, born of righteous anger. This was hardcore in it’s rawest form, undiluted by the outside world. The band were a soundtrack to a scene still in it’s infancy, a scene that rallied and stood firm against the outside world. MTV had yet to sink it’s corporate teeth into the scene, the notion of anything pop being associated with punk rock was a joke. Whilst “American Band” may not sound as clean and polished as the slick boy band poseurs passing themselves off as punk rockers of toady, it’s power and passion remain as a testament to a time when to be hardcore, you had to live hardcore. Anything else was unacceptable. Re-issued by Beer City, along with a live set from the 1984 tour on which the band played with punk legends as The Ramones, The Dead Kennedys, Die Krezen, Poison Idea and the Cro Mags, and featuring sleeve notes from the band themselves, “Just An American Band” is the sound of liberty. The sound of an emerging force, of a band who lived it, eat it , slept it, dreamt it and did it. This is Verbal Abuse. This is Hardcore.

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