Holding onto anarchist punk ideals with the strength of ultra-hold hairspray mixed with sugar and water might seem more anachronistic than admirably antichristic depending on which side of your fence is creosoted. None on if matters though if your songs are an afterthought for puerile political aggrandising and ill-appraised ideas from the arse-end of a Jello Biafra spoken word album. Formed in the California wastes in the years before Green Day and The Offspring exploded, Total Chaos are more the brute cider swilling street urchin younger cousins of Bad Religion, the fear and paranoia of the Reagan years not extinguished or cleansed by Clinton in those commercial bands. Not afraid to whip out the stencils and spray cans for some emaciated guitar heroics a la Dead Boys and US Bombs (‘What You Gonna Do’, ‘Running With The Youth’) the way Thunders’d whip out a comb mid-song, this collection cascades from Discharge / Exploited hardcore thrash (‘Riot City’, ‘Punk Invasion’) to Clash / Rancid-esque melodic punk (‘Lost Boys’, erm,‘Complete Control’), a speedpunk splicing of the two (‘Am I Free’) all the way to the Ministry marble smashing sample-heavy (including the BlunderBush’s brilliant ‘It’ll take a long time to restore chaos, er, order from chaos...’) assault of ‘Freedom Killers’, and back headlong into sleazybopping Punk’n’Roll pastiche (‘Baby I Hate You’),

Far more than one trick punk ponies plodding aimlessly without even a one track mind Total Chaos might not change your life, they might not even change your mind, but they may well make you change one or two records, and have more to say than Billie Joe Green Day’s trite tantrum tirades that seem to be based more on the bassist nicking his eyeshadow and still sit well in the tradition of their dork-punk than a sudden growing up and realisation that things suck a little bit. Totally classless, tastefully crass and tribally thunderous. __________________________________________________

- Stu Gibson