A New Language
From Functioning on Impatience

In 1998, Coalesce released this, their second full length album. The music was typical of the band: loud, fast, hard, angry, and intentionally confusing. Its seven songs (spanning a mere, though blistering 20 minutes) were recorded in a whirlwind 3 days and released by the relatively new record label Second Nature Recordings. They turned to a “Matt Jones” (who, as far as I can tell, has disappeared into obscurity) for the album design. This was the greatest decision Coalesce ever made as a band.

The cover of Functioning on Impatience is nothing short of graphic design perfection.

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Reflection Seen as Shadow

It wouldn’t be Music for Steve if I didn’t post the entire Sparkwood and Twenty-First album.

This little dandy is a now entirely un-obtainable recording that I happened across sometime in 1998. I knew someone in the band. Or at least knew someone who knew someone in the band. Whatever.

I remember exactly where I was when I first heard it. My friend Stephanie (who I call ho-ju and who I miss dearly) was dating a guy in the Bay Area (who, I must admit, I didn’t really like, though he was nice enough… I forget his name). We had gone down for the weekend, probably caught a show, and crashed on somebody’s floor somewhere. At some point during the weekend, we ended up at ho-ju’s boyfriend’s house, hanging out in his tiny bedroom. He popped a CD in his dinky little stereo and mentioned that his friends had just recorded it. I expected straight-edge hardcore since he and most of his friends were in straight-edge hardcore bands… Heck, everyone was in a straight-edge hardcore band in 1998. Anyway, I knew which friends he was talking about and they were your run-of-the-mill, clean-cut, straight-edge kids who had recently discovered the joys of large-guage earrings, but not yet tattoos. “So,” I thought, “bring on the the Ignite wanna-be’s.”

Instead, what I heard blew me away.

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New Noise
From The Shape of Punk to Come

This is the best punk song ever recorded. More than being the culmination of all punk music before it, Refused simply destroyed the future of punk music by pushing it as far as it could possibly go before it had no choice but to evolve into a new genre.

I was roundly mocked when I said that in 1998, but 8 years later I still think I’m right. New Noise delivers exactly what it promises: a new noise. Using every punk trick in the book combined with just the right amount of modern production, no other band has been able to create anything quite like this song. Newer punk outfits like (+44) have to settle for sounding “old school,” modern hardcore has evolved and is now refered to almost exclusively as “metal,” and even the kids at Victory Records are wearing make-up. With The Shape of Punk to Come and particularly with New Noise, Refused drew a line in the sand and marked the evolution point in the entire punk movement.

The reason this song sounds surprisingly modern 8 years after it was recorded is not because Refused was “ahead of their time.” Put simply, Rufused is the time.

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