By: Sascha
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Decry* was a frisky West Coast Punk band (Monrovia, CA. to be exact) who started up in '82 that toured extensively with the big names of the day, put out a well received album--"Falling" on Toxic Shock-- and as far as I can remember, had a decent nationwide following.

I remember them being classed as a hardcore band, which seems like a misnomer the more I listen to the Cleopatra retrospective, billed imaginatively as "Complete Decry '82-'86". Decry's earlier material on Toxic Shock may have sounded like hardcore to the vast horde of Debbie Gibson and Human League listeners at the time, but it's really more traditional punk inflected rock. There is a definite Dead Boys influence to the "Falling" era material…the cover of "Sonic Reducer" certainly comes as no surprise. There are also touches of other traditionally flavored bands such as DOA and Channel 3 as well. In other words, it isn't an all out thrash assault, though there was plenty of speed and power to their early efforts.

In this context, Decry's supposed boo-hiss "sellout" record "Japanese" doesn't seem much like the cock rock many slammed it as at the time. I bought this record because I remember Al Quint** told me to get "Falling", and not being able to get that I figured this would do. It certainly had me scratching my little shaven head. I didn't hate it, but it wasn't what I expected either.

"Japanese" kicks off with the rowdy and instantly likeable "Here To Stay", which boasts a superb screaming eagle intro and relevantly snide vocals by shouter Farrel Holtz. I really liked this song, despite my fundamentalist outlook at the time. It stuck in my head long after I had given or traded the record away and I clearly recall stomping through my high school halls intoning "There's pills, cheap thrills, people waving hundred dollar bills". This sort of lyricism was a nice antidote to the mainstream dreck of the radio and also annoyed of my progressive high school peers who were gargling back the sensitivity of artistes like Elvis Costello and the world's most safe "dangerous" band, The Replacements. Never mind the fact that there were precious few cheap thrills in my life (save for playing "chew and screw" with Sleaze***) and I was at least twenty-five before I even saw a hundred dollar bill.

The whole band sounds stop-on-a-dime rehearsed throughout "Japanese". It's immediately obvious these guys had been playing together for awhile, and doing it well. What now crops up as the real drawback is the overall production of the record. Plainly put, it's flat. The material absolutely begs for a big league sound, much like compatriots Channel 3 had on "Airborne" or "Last time I drank…". The whole mix sounds downright timid. Pat Muzingo--sticksman of the band--claims that "far too much time" was spent on the first (?) three songs off the record, but you don't hear that at all…."Japanese", in fact, sounds like an exceptionally well done demo.

But back to the tunes themselves. Besides the direct hit of "Here To Stay", the record boasts another corker in "Something In Common", which again makes me think of a West Coast answer to The Dead Boys. It's not a rip off of "Flamethrower Love", but almost sounds like a tribute to that song. There is some sizzling guitar work from Taz Rudd and Andrew Vermullen. Lyrically, it's a call for subculture unity that seems miles away from Here To Stay's snotty paen to West Coast high life. I love it and eighteen years later the song has pummeled it's way back into my personal Top Forty. "Faces In The Night" was a song that didn't do much for me then, and doesn't now, but "Two Miles from Nowhere" and "Stranger" gallop along nicely. Along with "Faces", the only other misstep is Decry's tepid cover of "Fortunate Sun". Why did so many glam punk bands--Cherry Bombz, Lords Of The New Church, Decry and more**** I'm sure--insist on pillaging John Fogerty and company's vaults? I like CCR as much as the next guy, but I'm of the belief that unless your are going to add something special to a song, leave it alone.

"Japanese" didn't do much for the credibility of the band in the eyes of the punks who followed them. Again, in retrospect, it seems like more a case of bad timing than anything else. Had the band released the record a few years later when this sound was more in step with the times, they might have had a runaway success on their hands. Muzingo alludes to as much in the liner notes to the Cleopatra collection. Recalling their 1986 swan song (after playing with the likes of Guns & Roses, Tex & The Horseheads et. al) Muzingo writes: "…we had every glam, punk, hardcore fan and band members from LA, there was probably 300 people there in a place that held 75. Decry had finally crossed over, but it was too late."

Members of Decry all went on to do other musical projects*****, with Farrell Holtz apparently helming an updated version of the band from time to time. More prescient to the Flash Metal Suicide archives, Muzingo ended up in the old punks home of Junkyard. (See review elsewhere). If you want the full story, go out and buy this retrospective and give both a deserving label and band some income. Despite a few duff moments, I was happy to be re-introduced to the disc after all these years, like the uncharacteristic pleasant surprise at a High School reunion.