Band : Agnostic Front
Album title : Victim In Pain
Label : Bridge Nine
Distributor : Suburban
Release date : 17/11/2009
Release : (Double Re-issue) CD

To commemorate the 25th anniversary of their debut album (Victim in Pain was originally released in late 1984 on the small Rat Cage Records imprint, and also made available as a split-release on the band’s sophomore full-length release, 1986’s Cause For Alarm, the band’s first release on the relatively “bigger” label Relativity), Bridge Nine Records collaborated with New York Hardcore legends Agnostic Front to re-issue the album in a nice package (the European cover apparently differs from the American one…or at least, that’s what a view on bridge9.com/store and a comparison to what I’ve got in my hands implies). Meaning, they not only re-issued the album on CD with the 10 songs off the band’s 1983 EP United Blood  (originally issued as a 7-inch EP on the even smaller Last Warning imprint) as bonus tracks, but also re-issued both the album in 12-inch and the EP in 7-inch vinyl formats! How about some backgrounds?

So, on Victim In Pain original members Roger Miret (vocals – well, actually there had been two singers in the band before him) and Vinnie Stigma (guitar) had replaced bassist Adam Moochie by Rob Kabula and drummer Raybeez by Dave Jones (both would be replaced numerous times after, before the band split in 1992 – However, when reformed in 1996, AF’s line-up again comprised Kabula). The album contains a couple of songs which have remained live favourites throughout the band’s career (such as the album title song, “United And Strong”, and the anthemic “Power”), but due to their short-sharp-shock tendencies, the 11 songs on the album didn’t even last 14 minutes! In spite of its short duration, the album is still considered one of the genre-defining records of the era’s NYHC scene (funny then, that the band’s popularity grew even bigger when they started adding Thrash Metal influences to the music starting their ’86 release). Both the full-length and the EP were recorded at Demo Studios with Don Fury, a semi-legendary producer of those times. The EP’s tracks (which include an earlier version of the VIP track “Last Warning”) had an even shorter average length (5 songs not even getting over the half-minute margin), and with a total  length of just under 6 ½ minutes, it’s not amazing the 10 songs fit on a 7-inch release.

Back in the days when this album came out first (or rather when it was re-issued as a plit with 1986’s Caause For Alarm), I was only starting to discover Hardcore and Punk to the fullest (thanx to a couple of people I’d learned to know), and AF was one of the early bands I liked most (along with quite a few others, I assure you)…so it would be unfair of me to give this re-issue a rating. Nevertheless, I’ve added the release to my year-lists (due to the interesting fact of having that United Blood EP as a bonus, maily)!

Tony.