My War Songs Ranked
My War is the second studio album by American band Black Flag. It polarized fans on its release in 1984 on SST Records over the LP’s B-side, on which the band slowed down to a heavy, Black Sabbath-esque trudge, despite the reputation the band had earned as leaders in fast hardcore punk on its first album, Damaged. The A-side of the LP is composed of six generally high-paced, thrashy hardcore tracks, featuring guitar solos unusual in punk music. On the B-side are three tracks in a sludge metal style, each breaching six-minutes with ponderously slow tempos and dark, unrelenting lyrics of self-hatred. The band members had grown their hair long when they toured the album in 1984, further alienating their hardcore skinhead fanbase. Despite mixed reception at the time of the album’s release, My War is now regarded as one of Black Flag’s seminal releases and had a major influence on the development of sludge metal, grunge, and math rock. Here are all of My War songs ranked.
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9. The Swinging Man
“The Swinging Man” is easily the most bizarre and disorienting song on this LP; Stevenson indulges in some surprisingly technical and frenetic drumming for punk, and there’s a technicality and atonality to Ginn’s playing that almost reminds me of Robert Fripp from King Crimson.”
8. Forever Time
“Forever Time” is characterized by bursts of controlled noise, and Rollins shouting about… time, I guess. He says time a lot in this song, and screams it too, this song has some of his most powerful screams.”
7. Three Nights
“Classic Black Flag release, their last great album in my opinion. There is a slight metal influence in the songs that they would take too far later in their career (and even on the last three tracks), but overall it is still first and foremost a hardcore album.”
See more: Black Flag Albums Ranked
6. Scream
“Scream” is about Henry Rollins screaming in your ear. Both of them. I think all these songs share a similar anger to the rest of the album, but in a more indirect way, and revealed in a more gradual fashion, to the point where even when Rollins gets close to reclaiming his former vitriolic vigour on “Scream”, the album ends off with him utterly lost.”
5. Can’t Decide
“Can’t Decide” is slower and easier on the ears, but not necessarily any less unnerving; Rollins… shouts, for lack of a better word, about repression and indecision, and also lets out some rather pained screams for what’s supposed to be a breather from the opening round of vitriol that was “My War”.
4. Nothing Left Inside
“This was a completely guitar oriented album thats why many people dont understand it, cuz they don’t understand guitar oriented people like Greg Ginn. He wanted to make an album completely formed around the sounds of the guitar.”
See more: Black Flag Songs Ranked
3. Beat My Head Against the Wall
“Beat My Head Against the Wall”, a song presumably about beating one’s head against a wall, has a fitful energy to it, alternating between moments of lucidity and a blisteringly animated pace. There’s also a notably atonal Ginn solo, which is quite hard on the ears, but so fractured that it fits the song’s manic energy well.”
2. I Love You
“I Love You” would probably be a murder ballad if it weren’t as fast as it is, or maybe it really is; the song details a story of a man who works himself into a homicidal rage that he mistakes for love, because he believes his wife to have cuckolded him.”
1. My War
“The record begins with the title track, “My War”, a venomous song which features vocalist Henry Rollins railing against a perceived menace and declaring war on the whole damn world. In my limited experience with Black Flag, I deem this to be Rollins’ best vocal performance; the man sounds like he desperately wants to reach through your speakers and strangle you.”