Black Flag never sounded so good. Forget for a minute the fact that this is a benefit for three boys whom justice has been denied. Just concentrate on the music.
It sounds great. I can't stop recomending or listening to this CD. These are absolutely the tightest recordings of Black Flag songs I've ever heard. The mix is superior to anything they had available to them when they were still recording. The vocals aren't drowned out by the music, the bass and drum tracks are crystal clear and there is no "noise" in the recordings. I understand and even like the limitations of the original recordings, since they were done in the "do-it-yourself" early days of punk rock. However, I always wished for a remix that brought the quality of the songs out. Even the remastered editions of Black Flag's CD's aren't this clear.
The guest vocalists are pretty much perfectly paired to the songs. Think of Chuck D yelling "West Memphis Arkansas" at the very beginning, and take that all the way through the outro to "My War." The list of vocalists reads like a who's-who of the alternative/punk scene today. Henry Rollins takes on seven songs, some with other vocalists, some alone. Then you have Chuck D, Iggy Pop, Cedric Bixler Zavala, Corey Taylor, Exene Cervenka, Hank Williams III, Dean Ween, Tom Araya, Ice T and others. The perfect pairing of song to singer is Lemmy doing "Thirsty and Miserable." If there was ever a song that should be done by a certain singer, it would be that song with that singer. Not even necessarily because he's a drinking kind of guy, but because the chorus lends itself to his vocal style. Other great pairings are Ice T doing "Police Story" (think of the irony of Ice T playing a cop on "Law & Order: SVU," then doing this song...), Mike Patton doing "Six Pack" and my favorite on the disc, Tom Araya doing "Revenge." The list goes on. Each vocalist brings his or her unique style to the songs I've heard hundreds of times before.
.jpg?t=20120516015139)
![Chicago: Live in Concert [Blu-ray] Starring Robert Lamm, Lee Loughnane, James Pankow, et al. (Nov 1, 2011)](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/5198vHFv5UL._AA115_.jpg)
Article comments
1 - Chris
Rollins is also auctioning off a guitar used and signed by many of the artist during the "Rise Above" sessions, with the proceeds going to the WM3. The auction can be viewed here.
2 - Tristan
This is a fantastic "cause" and there have been many prominent celebrities and artists get behind this group of three young boys that were tried and unjustly convicted of murder in Arkansas. One of the three boys was sentenced to death and has been on death row awaiting execution for almost 10 years now.
Metallica also has helped support them.
The site that tells all the pertinent background info and gives you the most current updates on their case and the current status of their appeals is:
http://wm3.org/