July 2, 1998
Sure, they have a serious claim to being the best band to ever come out of Boston, but the key fact to remember about Mission of Burma is that their guitarist Roger Miller had to disband the group after two years because of his developing tinnitus. Understand? This band was LOUD. Brutally, bruisingly loud. Thank your stereo for having a volume control. Still, VS., Mission of Burma's only proper album, sounds best at cochlea-crushing decibels. Chiseled blocks of feedback, bone-rattling bass tone and discordant riffs - Mission of Burma explored the cacophonous harmonics that emerge only when safe sonic barriers are breached.
This is classic post-punk of the first order, with standout influences like Gang of Four, Pere Ubu and Joy Division - with their dense and incendiary jams lashed to tight songwriting and shouted vocals, Mission of Burma pointed the way toward hardcore, but was more melodic, consciously experimental and intelligent than that genre would become.
The album opens with a trembling vibrato burst of guitar, slams into a vicious coda and disintegrates rhythmically before suddenly jelling into a delightfully shocking chorus. Ahhhhh. It only gets better from there - Mission of Burma's strength is in their breathless diversity. No one trick band, they tackle foreboding gothic reverb on "Trem Two", danceable (!) grind on "Fun World", and the overdriven punk in "That's How I Escaped My Certain Fate" sounds as if the Ramones were not only better musicians but very, very pissed off.
VS. is every bit the confrontational aural assault the title suggests. Indulge your masochistic side and blow both your speakers and your mind.
- Jared O'Connor
Bruisingly loud