Crass — Christ- The Album
“Christ” is often seen as the bands most polished and approachable work, as the band took over a year to write, record and produce the album- but for me it’s very much a game of two half’s- the first studio disc through technical impressive rather lacks the focused & clever angry of the bands past releases. Also most of the twenty two songs on offer on the first disc(or first the two sides of vinyl as it originally was) rather lack the inventive and memorable moments of the bands best work.
But on plus side the second disc(or the original sides three & four of vinyl) is simply marvellous, jarring, angered and highly listenable stuff. The second disc features 24 live tracks that take in classics like “Do they Owe Us A Living”, “Banned From the Roxy”, “Securicor” and “Berkertex Bride”. But also features classic single & unreleased tracks like “Big A, Little A” & Nagaski Nightmare”. But beyond this been a great collection of live tracks the album also has all manner of rewarding & creative sonic elements cleverly intercut between the live tracks; there are field records, radio program snippets, emotional piano tinklings, story & poetry telling!, various cut up shouting, charting and crowd noise, and all manner of creative, amusing and atmospheric sonic matter which really heightens & at times make the whole collection of songs quiet surreal.
The studio material album also uses intercut elements between songs- like political radio interviews, adverts, speeches ect. And these are once again very well thought out, searing and darkly amusing, but sadly the songs around the intercut elements either feel too polished & over done, or lack the really spark of creatively that set Crass apart from most other punk bands, also there are few songs here that have anything memorable or distinct about them.
Package wise this like the other Crass reissues is very impressive and it features: a fully remastered album, a 64 page booklet featuring essays by key members, artwork and lyrics, a oversized A3 poster of one Gee Vaucher’s great black & white college works. Though sadly one of the key elements of the original "Christ" release is missing here- "A Series Of Shock Slogans and Mindless Token Tantrums" the original book that came with in the vinyl box set, apparently this should be on-line at Crass’s blog site but as of writing to this review it’s still not there. Let’s hope they resolved this soon, as of course this was a big part of the whole “Christ” experience & concept.
So to sum-up “Christ- the album” offers up one disc of polished, clever sampled inlayed studio songs, through sadly the tracks themselves are rather lacklustre and un-memorable. And a second disc of stomping yet surreal live tracks and creative/atmospheric intercut sonic textures. So not the projects most consistent work, but the second disc makes this worth picking-up alone.