To commemorate the streetwise, live-oriented sound of early 90's Washington DC punk, DC-Jam Records has chosen to re-release the demo of TRUSTY, one of the less known bands associated with Ian McKaye's Dischord Records. It would be unfair to go to lengths to criticize and draw major conclusions from a simple demo that was obviously made for kicks, for such this one is more than adequate. But as with most punk CDs (not that punk is the only genre guilty of this), you get some really good material amounting to the length of an EP and beyond that, a regurgitation of punk clichés which are recognizable if you have heard more than 10 albums in this style. And as with demo re-releases usually, the content is meaningful if you are a fan of TRUSTY or Dischord Records, but despite the propaganda of the punk connoisseur in the booklet this CD is not going to tear holes in your player or brain.

There's oodles of tasty, activating and scummy street rock in tracks such as "Trusty" (their take on the "Exploited Barmy Army" concept) and even contemplative atonal guitar wails in "Bitter" that could have come from some NOMEANSNO experiment, while "Voices" is lethally memorable with its blasphemous lyrics about a killing spree ("Jesus didn't give me very good advice"). Some of the more angst-ridden songs such as "Soulmate" remind of BLACK FLAG's fucked-up stories, but without the brutality there's something aggravating about it; this kind of complaint about personality types and behavior that pisses them off sounds like it's coming from nowhere and maybe the lyrics are not good enough for the listener to see the point, as is the case with "Mister Know It All". TRUSTY plays credible, proven punk that doesn't try to be anything more than it is, but that also renders it second tier music in comparison with, say, FUGAZI and MINOR THREAT.

- Devamitra

OFFICIAL SITE: myspace.com/trustypunk

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