Poison Idea – Darby Crash Rides Again: The Early Years
From a recent issue of Record Collector.
By 1990, Poison Idea had much mastered their streamlined metallic punk with the album Feel The Darkness. Now seemingly best remembered through Pantera’s cover of The Badge, this release compiles demos and live tracks from 1981-1983.
Like most punk demos of the era, 1981’s Boner’s Kitchen material is a raw blast of murky instrumentation and semi-decipherable vocals, which combined with the band’s paucity of ideas (short, loud, fast!) offers little beyond historical curiosity. They’d soon progress, however, as evidenced in two parallel versions of Give It Up – the
1982 Darby Crash demo version showing that their fury was being channelled into something far more cohesive.
Elsewhere there are live tracks ranging from the ferocious Typical to the sloppy (I Hate) Reggae and out takes from the Record Collectors Are Pretentious Assholes EP. Two versions of Motörhead’s signature track rattle by but fail to match the version they’d later record for the covers album Pajama Party.
Ultimately The Early Years is one for pretentious assholes only – those eager to discover Poison Idea at their best should hold for the Feel The Darkness and Kings of Punk reissues that Southern Lord will be releasing later in the year
