Naked Aggression

I grew up in a small town in southern New Mexico where there was almost nothing to do. Small towns everywhere are like that, and like many social misfits in small towns across the United States (and elsewhere I imagine) I took solace in music that expressed my bitterness and misanthropy. With little else to do I often browsed the music catalogues at my friend's record shop looking for anything categorized under the genre "punk".
So it was that one day I stumbled across two bands in the "N" section and ordered their albums. The more significant of these (to me) was Naked Aggression's Bitter Youth. (Negative Approach was good too, but I really appreciate the radical political content of the former) Although there were some preceding split 7" and EP's Bitter Youth was the first of this Madison, WI anarcho-punk bands full-length LP's and sports a raw urgency to go along with it's radical politics. Plus it has what I think is one of the best punk-rock record covers of all time.

5 Years, a number of recordings later, and now based in California, they released Gut Wringing Machine. It was a further development of their sound and, contrary to the pattern of most punk bands, actually faster and more politically savvy than prior albums. Unfortunately it was also the tragic end of Naked Aggression for shortly after the release of Gut Wringing Machine the bands primary songwriter and accomplished guitarist, Phil Suchomel died. One would think this was the end for Naked Aggression, I did, but apparently not. As I was revisiting these albums yet again recently I did a little research and apparently after a number of years hiatus, the band reformed with some new crew and released some new material before going "dormant" again. We shall see...

Buy Some Bitter Youth

Bitterness

The track listing is a little off on this, but the songs are there and easy to sort out.

 Buy Some Gut Wringing Machine

Wringer

MySpace
Wikipedia