Description
Discharge are a British hardcore punk band formed in 1977 by Terence Tezz Roberts and Royston Rainy Wainwright. The band are characterized by a minimalistic approach to music and lyrics, a heavy, distorted and grinding guitar-driven sound with raw, shouted vocals similar to a political speech, with lyrics covering anarchist and pacifist themes.
Discharges 1982 debut album Hear Nothing See Nothing Say Nothing saw instant success and went to Number Two on the UK Indie Charts and Number 40 in the UK Album Charts. The album helped pave the way for thrash metal, black metal, crust punk and grindcore and numerous extreme metal sub-genres, while the genre of d-beat is named after Discharge and their distinctive drumbeat.
Numerous line-up changes followed and the tempo of the bands songs also steadily increased melding punk with the incessant, heavy drumbeats and wall of sound distortion guitar pioneered on the Overkill album by Motorhead. The new, harder-edged style also tended to use much darker, more nihilistic and violent lyrics while emphasizing the grisly effects of nuclear warfare and the social ills caused by capitalism. The band also expressed its political and social themes in their albums artwork which depicted the horrors of war using an iconic black-and-white photography style.
1986s Grave New World, a mainstream metal album with a glam sound from Morriss high-pitched singing style, saw the band split shortly thereafter. However, the bands influence on modern day metal continued to grow the likes of Metallica, Anthrax, Sepultura and Machine Head all covered their songs.
By 2001 fan demand was so great that the classic line-up of Morris, Roberts, Roberts and Wainright reunited after meeting at a party held by original bassist Bamford. In 2002 they released their self-titled album Discharge, a return to their early 1980s style featuring political commentary and aggressive playing. Now in 2016, with original drummer Tezz Roberts back in the band but now on rhythm guitar, Discharges debut for Nuclear Blast sees the band at their snapping, gnarliest best with songs like New World Order, End Of Days and Raped And Pillaged standing up against anything from their early 1980s prime.
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