Ripcord - Poetic Justice

I bought my copy of Poetic Justice at the insistence of two of my friends, who were very knowledgeable about hardcore, but also were heavily into the fledging noise-core scene that was making its way over from Great Britain with bands like Heresy, ENT, Electro Hippies, Napalm Death and the like. I had heard them mention Ripcord in the same context and I had heard a few songs from either their first LP “Defiance of Power” or the EP “Harvest Hardcore”, which came out in 1987. I wouldn’t know which one though, because it all sounded the same to me at the time. My young ears had no context for that thrashy and very aggressive music. So naturally, I was very reluctant to buy this supposed masterpiece when the three of us happened to come across this album in some vendor’s record case outside a hardcore show. But my friends assured me that “Poetic Justice” was different from Ripcord’s earlier releases (“slower” is probably what they said) and that I would definitely like it. Eventually, I caved in to peer pressure and spent what little money I had on this LP and probably a couple of 7”s. And how couldn’t I? That cover with the trees looked so peaceful…

When I listened to it the next day I was totally bummed out. This was exactly the type of crap that I had been afraid of. I listened to half of the first side and maybe one or two songs on the flip side – just to be sure that there weren’t any good songs hidden on that side. Then I filed it under “R” and did not listen to it again for several years.

I honestly can’t remember when I took this out again, but I was pleasantly surprised when I did. This was a completely different record that I was listening to. This was great powerful hardcore that sounded like SSD and Attitude Adjustment and maybe a couple of other bands that I had gotten into over the years. Most recently I was reminded of Ripcord when I listened to SSS (Short Sharp Shock – also very much worth checking out!). Anyway, fast forward a couple of more years to the present day and I find myself a Top Listener for Ripcord on Last.FM.

This later fact shows you 2 things: 1) this album is really good and has only grown on me over the years, 2) there aren’t enough listeners for Ripcord out there, if I can make it with my meager number of plays into the Top Listener category.

So download this and spread the word (Trust me, you'll like it, it's slower than their earlier stuff):

“Kill from the Heart” has an excellent biography for Ripcord, which covers everything about the band that I left out here. So you should definitely check it out.l