The T4 Project is the brain child of Mental Records producer Shannon Saint Ryan, who composed the music, produced the CD, played guitar, and co-ordinated the community of musicians, artists, and technicians who worked together for two and a half years to bring the project to it's final fruition. The T4 Project is an eighteen track Punk Rock song cycle and companion graphic novel packaged together as a story based concept album. While that might sound more like the description of an album from one of the progressive rock dinosaurs, both the concept and the content of The T4 Project are far removed from the sort of pretentious clap trap that used to permeate those recordings.

The T4 of the title is a bacteriophage virus that propagates by invading a cell until its filled to bursting. Once the original host bursts the virus rapidly multiplies by infecting more cells within a body. The T4 virus is being used here as a metaphor for the manner in which societies indoctrinate young people with any means at their disposal so they conform to the status quo and be the link in the chain that passes the message along to those coming after them.

The booklet and the song cycle together tell the story of the virus and some of the people who are trying to resist being infected by it. Interspersed between the songs are samples of the way in which the world spreads the virus. These take the form of commercials; become an unthinking drone by joining the army, take a pill that cures cancer - potential side effects include may cause cancer. Or samples of speeches that reflect prevalent attitudes; a reminder to doctors not to cure patients, only to treat their symptoms so they don't put themselves out of business.

The music throughout is undeniably punk and is played by musicians representing bands from Germany, Canada, the United States, and of course Great Britain. The rhythm section alone included former Subhuman's drummer, Trotsky, from Germany, Spike Smith from England, whose drumming career has included Morrissey and The Damned, Jay Bentley of Bad Religion brought his bass from Canada, and The Buzzcocks' bass player Tony Barber, who now lives in the States.

In my mind the composition of those involved in putting this together is almost as important as the recording itself. It signifies that this project is more than just one person, or one band spouting off. Rather it's an attempt by a community of like minded people to give voice to what they believe in. Aside from the people named above, there were also guitarists and vocalists, all the technicians, a forty person choir, and the artists who worked on the graphic comic and other associated products who all had a hand in making this work.