OFF! Free LSD LP (Translucent Electric Blue Vinyl)

OFF!, the punk braintrust formed in 2010 by Keith Morris (ex-Black Flag, Circle Jerks) and Dimitri Coats (ex-Burning Brides), will release their first album in eight years, Free LSD, on Fat Possum Records. The band's powerful new rhythm section: bassist Autry Fulbright II (...And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead) and drummer Justin Brown (Thundercat, Herbie Hancock) accompany the release. The injection of new energy into the band's signature high-anxiety hardcore is palpable and volatile, adding a new swing to the music's incendiary thrust.

OFF!'s third album, 2022's Free LSD, is...loud, hard-edged, and manic. It's also their longest and most complex effort to date. While most of the tracks on their first two LPs struggled to crack the 60-second mark, this time ten of the 16 numbers are over two minutes, and the songs and arrangements are more full-bodied, still raving at full strength but with a more significant metal and hard rock punch in Dimitri Coats' guitar and more twists and turns in the still-streamlined melodies....As good as OFF!'s previous releases were, they (in classic hardcore style) sounded like they were produced in hit-and-run style, with the band cutting them live with minimal overdubs. Free LSD, on the other hand, aims to be something more; in its intensity and vision, it succeeds, and it's a gloriously weird triumph.

Punk supergroup OFF! Is back with a new album and a new lineup. Vocalist Keith Morris and guitarist Dimitri Coats are still around, but towing along a fresh rhythm section made up of Thundercat sideman Justin Brown on drums and Trail of Dead bassist Autry Fulbright II. With those new players, the quartet has become more dynamic, with Brown especially pushing the rest of his bandmates even harder with the thrash metal-like assault on his kit that evokes the spirit of the late, great D.H. Peligro. Coats, too, has added a lot more electronics to his rig that, as the album title nods too, gives a coat of dark psychedelia to these songs.