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Paint It Black: Paradise
In music, there is no such thing as evolution. Musical styles change, but they do not progressat least not in the way that you might think. Take the case of Minor Threat as an example of this phenomenon. Minor Threat bursts onto the scene, basically creates the genre of super-fast, youthful hardcore not to mention one of the most important indie labels of all time. A couple of years go by, Minor threat breaks up, and Ian MacKaye forms Embrace to experiment with different song structures and a more personal lyrical style. At the same time, Rites of Spring is playing around in the same area deconstructing hardcore punk and infusing more, dare I say it, emotional themes and lyrics into the mix. Eventually Ian and members of Rites team up to form Fugazi, post-punk musical gods. So what? you say, I know this already, whats the point? The point is that during this entire time, MacKaye and company were acting as punk-rock Johnny Appleseeds, dropping styles and genres here and there. Minor Threat rolled through Dayton, Ohio, and everyone who came to see the show went out and formed little Minor Threat clones until those clones eventually evolved in their own weird ways. The point is that Music is changing in strange, distributed networks of genre and influencesimultaneously. Old styles dont die, everyday a fifteen-year-old listens to Black Flag, or Jawbreaker, or Minor Threat for the first time and is turned on to the weird, wonderful, and totally dead world of punk music. This brings us to Paradise, the new record by the punk-rock super-group (sorry, I just love saying that) Paint It Black. After their last, fairly straightforward record CVA, it is somewhat surprising to hear PIB start moving in different directions on this album. Granted, the new directions that PIB is moving into are subtle, and to the untrained ear, may seem non-existent. There are many different strains here that are fused together. First and foremost there is the classic east-coast, post Gorilla Biscuits dirgecore, but that style is tempered by more straightforward hardcore elements and even by some distinctive melodies thrown into the mix. No real new ground is broken here, but so what. This is a great hardcore record that even jaded old bastards like me can enjoy. The point is that music need not evolve in a way that leaves older forms behind to die a cold death of critical disinterest. Punk may be dead in the sense that someone has pushed the envelope further, but that doesnt mean that the same needs that created hardcore in the first place arent still there. It seems that every kid with a hoodie and a dream starts a hardcore band, and there is no reason why that should change. Paradise will give these kids more ammunition in their battle against the mainstream, whatever that is, and keep the hardcore underground aliveat least until another kid finds that hidden Minor Threat album and reinvents the whole damn thing again.
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