The height of both the band's influence & their attack occurred in the early to mid-1980’s, and this recent four-CD box set on Cherry Red sub-label Captain Oi! brings together the bands most important & influential work.  Featured here is pretty much everything the band put out between the years 1980 & 1985- taking in singles, eps, albums, compilations, and a live album.

The set comes in a hard card flip side box which features mood fittingly black, white & red color theme. Each of the four discs come in their own mini cardboard sleeves, reproducing the monochrome & stark artwork of the original releases. We also get 18-page inlay booklet- taking in a brief history of the band, press clippings & reviews, single artwork & stark-yet- brutal live pictures.

The box set is laid out in a fairly chronological fashion- on disc one first we get the nine tracks from the bands 1981 EP Why, this is followed by tracks from their early 1980 & 81 Ep releases Realities of War & Fight Back.  The second CD takes in the band infamous debut album 1982’s Hear Nothing See Nothing Say Nothing, as well as a selection of single tracks from 81 & 82. The third disc takes in the bands 1984 compilation  Never Again- this features remixed versions of tracks, and lesser known tracks- this disc is topped off with another four bonus tracks. And lastly we  have The Nightmare Continues…which was released in 1990, and featured a live set recording from 1983 that featured the band tearing through 16 tracks.

It’s fair to say that Discharges sonic output was far from varied, or really changed stylistically through the 80’s. So you can’t really break down & analyze the bands sound & it’s progression like a band like Crass. Also, this boxset does feature quite a few repeated material- but if you take the set in four punchy CD shots, to be played separately-  it works fine.

The pinnacle  of both this box set, and the bands out put, in general, is  seen as 1982’s Hear Nothing  See Nothing Say Nothing. The album offers up fourteen shots of punchy, urgent & angry punk- that’s both very rapid, bleakly focused, and metallically tinged. With each of the tracks been an unforgiving blend of ear stingily ferocious drumming, searing barbwire guitar lines, bluntly battering bass lines, and shouty enraged male vocals.

The other three discs and their tracks certainly have their moments- and add to both the weight & attack of the bands notoriety for battering punk- but it’s the debut album which is the most even statement of the bands intent- if you do pick this set up, I’d say play the debut first & foremost, then spread out to the other discs.

I’d only heard bit’s & bobs of Discharge work in the past, so it’s great to see Captain Oi offering up a through sonic picture of the band as their most vital & unpromising- pricing wise the release coming in under or near the £20.00 mark, so it’s not too steep for a four-disc box set. Of interest to both aging punks, who want all of their classic Discharge in one place, and those interested in finding out more about the band that helped birth both the hardcore punk scene and more extreme metal genres.