Soldier 76 - Survival

76 Records

One of the bands that rose out of the ashes of Fresno’s Boot Party was Soldier 76. Unfortunately a short-lived band who released the killer album “Balance Of Armour” CD and the not so essential “Power It Up” EP for Vulture Rock Records in 1999. News didn’t travel quite as fast in that time and age as it does now and I thought the band had just broken up after those releases. Due personal issues they obviously did, but little did I know that they were actually working on a second album and even lay down some demo-tracks in the studio. Until more recently when the news of the “Survival” 12” was announced.

The recordings on “Survival” date back to the summer of 1999, so don’t expect this to be a reunion kind of 12” (although I wouldn’t mind if this release would motivate the band to reunite again) but more of a retrospective if things that could, and perhaps, should have come. Because despite that the seven tracks on this slab of self-released, under the name 76 Records, wax are ‘just’ demo’s in the process of recording a second full-length album, they do sound great (with the exception of “Call To Arms” that was already a senseless filler on the B-side of the “Power It Up” EP) and got that ‘90’s Fresno-Oi!-vibe’ through and through. A sound I definitely miss from time to time, especially after hearing some ‘new’, unreleased recordings from that era.

Because beside the fact that I consider “Call To Arms” a blank, the remaining six tracks are hits and must be heard if you were already into Soldier 76, or similar bands (with some of them having shared members) from that time like Boot Party, Fully Loaded, Patton’s Legion, Chapter 21 and the Violent Drunks in the first place. I understand that the price of this record is a bit steep for a 12”, but songs like “Revolution”, “FCS”, “Survival” and “Last Great Crusade” sound great, the whole lay-out has that classic, old-school’ish feel to it that fits perfectly with the music and the album is self-released by bassist Bo Baroni himself. You do the math if it’s worth your buck.