Description
Conflict – “The Final Conflict” LP
An American pressing (first time for the US) of the London anarcho punk’s 1988 album. It was one of many new chapters in the band’s long running legacy, and a significant one at that: this is the first of two studio albums that featured the addition of Steve Ignorant (Crass) sharing the vocal duties. But alas, it was also the first Conflict recording in some time that did not feature Kevin Webb on guitar – whose fabulous noise-laden distortion had contributed so much to the preceding 7″ EPs and Ungovernable Force LP (if I remember right, at this point in time he was playing guitar with Visions Of Change). Like many, as a youngin’ I was a huge supporter/convert in the mid-1980s, but by the time of Final Conflict my record collection had long since shifted away from Crass and Mortarhate, and was filling up instead with records on Manic Ears, Dischord, Earache and Alternative Tentacles. By the standards of the hyper-fast skate thrash of 1988, Conflict had become a slightly outdated style of street punk.
Their records were never without certain flaws, you always got warts and all with this problematic band, but this is still a worthwhile album with some significant points of interest – keeping-up with the times, there is a noticeable hardcore influence in the rhythmic assault on side one; while side two ambitiously stretches into even broader new sounds, pulled-off, on the whole, with great success.
Not as great as their albums from before; not as bad as the albums that followed.
