Protest And Survive
The savage mutilation of the human race is set on course
Protest and survive
Protest and survive
It is up to us to change that course
Protest and survive
Protest and survive
Welcome to Discharge Hear Nothing See Nothing Say Nothing, the best punk LP I own, and a tough contender for best LP I own full stop. At the risk of repeating myself this is the pure essence of the early 1980’s, monochromatic nuclear dread backlit by impotent fury at those toying with our futures.
By 1982 UK punk had become a uniform to be mocked by cabaret comics as it had pretty much eaten itself, leaving us with all manner of safety pin festooned excreta. Luckily for us something mean was stirring in the clay of Stoke-on-Trent*, fed on anger, despair, punk and Motörhead. After a warm up Discharge cut Hear Nothing See Nothing Say Nothing and changed the face of extreme music through genres as-yet unborn. If you have ever loved Slayer, (pre-rubbish) Metallica, grindcore and all its myriad tadpoles of rage** then you have loved the essence of this LP.
All in 27 minutes, 27 seconds.
The first sound on Hear Nothing See Nothing Say Nothing is new drummer Garry Moloney, it is fitting as his presence really seems to have helped accelerate Discharge’s sound. As tracks flash by I find myself becoming lost in the sheer momentum and vicious bite of the band’s noise, occasional lyrics and solos (‘The Nightmare Continues’ is a goodie) reaching through the scathing steel wash into my consciousness. It can be thrillingly overwhelming.
What Discharge don’t get credit for is how damn good they are at tunes, you need to be with this type of extremity or it just becomes a chore and/or a novelty. Take ‘Protest And Survive’ one of my absolute faves, the CND leaflet inspired lyrics^ married to a slower tune, Cal Morris stamps rather than sings the lyrics and Bones plays another brilliant mini guitar solo. It is only 2:13 long but is such a complete thing in its own right that I was really surprised it wasn’t longer as I listened to it for the 8th time in a row just now.
Where Discharge differ from the hordes of hairy metallers that would ape their heaviness is in their lyrical intent. Their topics, non-conformity, rage and nuclear war overlap but whereas later hairy types relish the ghoulish details of it all, Discharge deal with it from a place of pure disgust. The few points where you get unpleasant details – such as the mighty ‘Q: And Children? A: And Children’ are the more effective for it; this is entertaining polemic, not entertainment as polemic.
I will stop generalising, have some specifics:
Free Speech For The Dumb: thanks for the royalties Metallica but compare the two; this version is absolutely venomous. The initial guitar build-up is immense too.
Drunk With Power: such a powerful track, it literally lights up the whole LP. One of Bones’ best riffs, which is really saying something).
The Possibility Of Life’s Destruction: the fastest thing here and it especially hard coming after the spoken word/documentary snippets ‘Cries Of Help’. ’nuff said.
Throughout it all the musicianship is just perfect, not that anyone here would get invited to jam with Yes anytime, I mean that the whole band are so perfectly themselves. Listening you get a sense of how tight a unit the band were, how they had all grown into this style together and just how incredibly well they meshed. Just the sheer stamina to play like this baffles me.
Bones is an astonishingly good guitarist, people are still ripping his stuff off, to play that fast and to hit so many brilliant micro-solos too is supremely good. The rhythm section is so tight, bassist Rainy is another excellent player who would set the templates for all manner of later extremists. Vocalist Cal Morris carries it all, barking, stamping out his words but never straining. Big kudos to producer Mike Stone for being able to capture all this lightning in this particular vinyl bottle.
My copy of Hear Nothing See Nothing Say Nothing is a shiny 2015 clear vinyl reissue, not a dog-eared original (I’ve never seen one in all my travels and travails). For maximum shouty apocalyptic value for money there are 9 bonus tracks on side B (side A being the original 14 song LP); I like the way they did that, not breaking the integrity of the original.
There are tracks from 1981’s Never Again EP and a couple of singles running up to 1983. From these 9 tracks I would select ‘Two Monstrous Nuclear Stockpiles’ for sheer heartfelt heaviness^^; the rock and rolliness of ‘State Violence State Control’ and the out and out metal riffing of ‘Where There’s A Will There’s A Way’.
Life is like a pubic hair on a toilet seat, sooner or later you get pissed off
Side A run out groove
Hear Nothing See Nothing Say Nothing is still an astonishing sounding LP 43 years after it was first released and despite the extent to which elements of it have been subsumed into our louder discourse. In 1982 it must have sounded like nothing else on the planet. Even today it is an untamed, pummelling and occasionally brutal listen, brilliantly so.
Buy a copy.
Free speech, free speech for the dumb
Free speech, free speech for the dumb
Free speech, free speech for the dumb
Free speech, free speech for the dumb
Look how that’s going for us in 2025.
1274 Down.
PS: welcome to Stoke-on-Trent in 1983.
PPS: the pubic hair quote was on a later EP, Warning: Her Majesty’s Government Can Seriously Damage Your Health, tracks included on this LP. I cheated.
*that’s an erudite nod to Clay Records who put out Discharge’s music, the owner of which Mike ‘Clay’ Stone produced this album, plus a bonus allusion to the potteries generally. If I was a AD&D character my Erudition stat would be 18 (granting +4 on knowledge based saving throws). True story.
**keeping it simple folks, I don’t want to get lost in the wormholes of microgenres. Basically anything extreme, loud and fast is traceable back to this wellspring, but you find Discharge’s sheet metal guitar sensibilities in all manner of slower stuff too.
^it was a reaction to the UK government civilian nuclear strategy ‘Protect And Survive’. My folks still have a copy of the ‘Protest And Survive’ leaflet.
^^although it sounds less focused than the Hear Nothing See Nothing Say Nothing material.
Sometimes your skill in putting this blog together leaves me in awe. A bit of deft sequencing and juxtaposition, and you’ve revealed the link between Steve Reich and Discharge, both albums that we really wish were pure historical artefacts reacting to times long past but both of which still hold a grim resonance today and which still need to be heard. Well played sir (if a little on the grim front). Makes me wonder what’s coming next…
Thank you very kindly Tim. It’s not all wonderfully curated you know, occasionally I’ll just pick something to write about randomly from the J section. But I did plan these two to sit together as echoes of, as you put it so well, times long past with resonance today.
Both LPs are such brilliant works in their own right, both hugely emotional in divergent ways. Hear Nothing is such an incredible record, you can hear whole genres knitting together in it’s slipstream.
Thanks again.
Wow that blueberry cream looks dangerous!!
It is and despite its lurid colouring there is nothing unnatural in it at all.
A great read, and a good listen.
Thank you – genuinely a Top 5 LP for me.
Some good short but to the point punk.