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(Dischord, 1985)

I know at least one person, who argues that this one is the most important Hardcore-Record ever recorded. And I am not the one to argue with him. First of all, because I don't really know the guy, but I know that he knows a lot more about hardcore than I do. So that makes him the expert and me the fan. So he talks and I listen. Then, I prefer to listen. And most of all, because this record has it all. This record is the start of whatever new trend there is fashionable right now in hardcore-music. This one started Emo, this one started melodies in hardcore, this started a trail of thought that is still influential nowadays (and hopefully for a long time to come). All these bands, be the handsome-boy-rockers like Bluetip or Kerosene 454, introverted emo-balladeers like Karate, emo-rock-superstars like Jimmy Eat World or Jets to Brazil, and even melodic-punks like Green Day or whoever, owe this band, this record in some way or another. Maybe someone who influenced that band was influenced by someone who was influenced by this record, but the connection is there. You can here it and you can feel it, because the energy still lives on.

The band itself, as a lot of Dischord-bands, only existed for a rather short time, from March 1984 to January 1986. (Not counting the short ressurectional stint under the moniker Happy go licky in 1987). It consisted of Guy Picciotto on guitar and vocals, Eddie Janney on guitar, Michael Fellows on bass and Brendan Canty on drums. All of them well-known names to anyone interested in the thriving HC-scene of Washington D.C. in the eighties and nineties. All four played in various bands before Rites of Spring and went on to other projects afterwards. To name them all would be a time- and space-consuming task, but here is a short list of the most important bandnames: Deadline, Faith, One Last Wish, Skewbald, Grand Union, Untouchables, Little Baby, and so on. Michael Fellows also once played with the Royal Trux. The most important band in the wake of these years is of course Fugazi, in which Guy Picciotto and Brendan Canty are still engaged, with Ian MacKaye and Joe Lally, as you all should know. As another sign for the incestuous character of that scene: Ian MacKaye produced this record, since he started Dischord-Records. It all comes together neatly, you see.

The output of Rites of Spring is rather limited, the album, a single and one other song (all available together on the CD-version of this album), not more then 17 songs recorded in all. Now what makes this band stand so apart from all the other hardcore-records in that time or ever since? It is the energy. The pure, moving and enlightening energy in every song, every hook and every line. The life shows of Rites of Spring are legendary, their intensity and tumultous chaos have been mentioned a lot. If they managed to bring only half of that spirit on the record, I wish that in 1985 I had been older than 13. I first heard this record when I was older than that, about 18 or 19, but I was hooked from the beginning. From the first lines of "Spring" the record takes up a pace and dynamic that is truly unbelievable. It is never harsh or aggressive or otherwisely evil, but full of positive energy and raging emotions, that will grip you around your body tightly and hug you like you were never hugged before. And this feeling is kept up until "end on end" marks the final point of the album (well, the vinyl version anyway). The songs on the seven-inch couldn't hold up the level, though they were still way better than what could be heard from the other bands in that time.

Guy Picciotto never stops singing, but if you have ever seen him live on stage, you know that only few performers are able to keep up with him as far as energetics, input and charisma are concerned. Maybe Iggy Pop would be a fair match, but then, what they are doing is completely different. Rites of Spring, like hundreds of descending bands, never play the wild man. Aggressive posturing or fistshaking anger at society, the system or lousy dayjobs aren't their thing. They were no less angry or pissed off at things than the other HC/Punk-bands around, but they tried to channel their energies and emotions into positive directions, into creating something beautiful. And what can be more beautiful, more artistically pleasing than creating something wonderful out of something negative and freeing yourself of sickening influences in the meantime. That is also why the lyrics on the record deal mostly with personal feelings and emotions, the ways out and in and all the tribes and tribulations concerned in the meantime. There is a lot of things involved in relationships that can't really be put in words, and the best parts, lyrically, on the record are, where the words fail to describe the feelings. In these moments a fusion is set free which makes the thoughts of the writer / singer more clear than any collections of words coudl ever have. As in "Theme (if I started crying)" where it goes "sometimes - when I - see a world inside, sometimes - when I - I try - I really try" and the music supports the non-meaning. Of course, these moments are broken up by sarcasm maybe just as "hopes just another rope to hang myself " or "cruelty is the better part of your honesty" in the same song.

Everyone of the 12 songs on this record is a winner. Whenever I listen to the record, I feel the urge to listen to it again. I rarely ever do, maybe because of fear that the effect might wear off with time, or maybe just because I haven't got enough time and there are still so many other records to listen to.