Gut InstinctGut Instinct is considered by many to be the most important hardcore band to ever come out of the city that bleeds. Before their was the Slumlords or Next Step Up, this was the band to see in Baltimore. At their time of inception the scene was getting overrun by racist skins so the band took their own stance and crafted several anti-racism anthems. Considering the band featured two black members, guitarist Mike Lars and bassist Mike Caver, the songs certainly held a lot of weight. This discography contains 17 tracks which were compiled from the bands 2 demos ("Off The Deep End" 1992 and "Rage and Fury" 1989), their "Disturbing The Peace" 7", two unreleased tracks from the recording of DTP and an unreleased track that was recorded live at Polka Inn, one of Baltimore's first hardcore venues.
It's insane how few people have actually heard of these guys. Obviously when they were forming in the late 80's, bands were going towards the cross-over direction and the music was taking a turn towards the dark side. You can definitely say these guys have a bit of the NYHC crossover sound but they definitely have their own flair. And Sebastian's vocals certainly gave them their own identity, his shout/scream style is definitely unique to him. And I got to say Mike Lars was a song writing machine, he was definitely one of the most underappreciated guitarists in the hardcore scene. He wrote some brutal ass fucking hardcore songs with just the right amount of thrash influence.
When you compare the bands older material to the new stuff you can definitely hear an evolution in the bands sound. The "Off The Deep End" demo certainly showed the band growing as musicians and writing more developed tracks. I mean shit the 1992 demos average track length was 5 minutes. "Rage and Fury"(1989) was straight up hardcore, musically and vocally. With the bands arguably strongest material, the "Disturbing The Peace" 7" was where the band perfectly blended the best of both worlds. Just a shame it has the worst recording of any of their material.
Sebastian Gorgone definitely could write some quality fucking lyrics. For the most part his lyrics run straight though the song without many repeats minus the awesome chorus parts. The songs dealt with the typical hardcore topics of the time: standing up and fighting for yourself and rallying against cops were the rallying cries of choice. But there was also songs where the band took on an important stance on racism, most notably in the track "Right Wing Hype". The title of the track should be enough for you to get the idea of what the song is about. Actually for the most part the entire "Rage And Fury" demo deals with songs about racism.
Hmm, well the production on here is pretty bad but certain parts of the album sound better than others. For instance the tone they achieved on the "Off The Deep End" demo from 1992 sounded much better than most of the stuff. The "Disturbing The Peace" 7" sounded extremely rough and raw, great songs but really low budget recording. The " Rage & Fury" demo from 1989 surprisingly didn't sound any worse than DTP which came out later. Even though the recording isn't where you'd like it to be, it certainly captures the sounds of a time when quality bands actually couldn't afford a decent studio.
Very solid layout but I think they could've done more with it, especially considering A389 was behind this and they always put out stunning layouts. The front cover has a nice black and white photo of guitarist Mike Lars with the band logo in plain font with a red and white swirl color. I liked the backing pages of the booklet which shows the band line-up in 1989-1991 and 1991-1992 with a blood splatter frame. Good stuff. The inside of the booklet is decent, it has all the lyrics to the songs in black text over a plain white background. The pictures of the albums these songs were compiled from, as well as some cool fliers are placed neatly throughout. I would've liked to see some linear notes or something though, they were even added on the "Disturbing Peace" reissue A389 Records put out not too long ago. Although the enhanced cd part of the album, equipped with live video footage, show flyers and rare photos makes up for it.
Rating: 4/5
Songs Worthy of Replay: Right Wing Hype, Wishing and Gut Instinct
Thesis: Big thanks go out to Dom from A389 Records for bringing these guys back into the public's eye because I'm sure if kids get to hear these songs, Gut Instinct will get their proper "legend" status. Nice clean packaging helps breath life into these songs 16 years later.