If you think today was bad, think about 1983! We had no clue, right? At the time, we needed bands like No Trend to point toward the subtext. Their cruelly negging anti-hardcore exploded into Washington DC back in '83, harshly contrasting DC's righteous straight-edge punk scene at the time. Satiric, sarcastic and diametrically opposed to the faddish stratification of youth subculture, No Trend's nihilistic rejection of the punk movement was itself a vital punk-rock expression. This savage mistrust in emergent cultural norms is familiar to us today, with little left in the government for the public to trust.
 

However, the arch expressions of satire should be distilled as entertainment, not dogma. Big mistake, folks! When viewed as music, the uncompromising noise of early No Trend was in itself a straightforward interpretation of hardcore angst, as evidenced in the track "Reality Breakdown". Jeff Mentges' delivery ranges from viscerally emotive to caustic pretension. Punk was a pose; this is a commentary. Stare deeply at your own reflection and ask yourself; are you in control of your own reality?

Unmistakable in tone and sound, the band continued to writhe in iconoclastic glee for a few more years, but these remasters of their earliest recordings, plus demos and a live set, showcase the stark industrial rage that had few rivals for unsettling sounds in a VERY unsettling era - now ready to inject into this new unsettling era! Listen to "Reality Breakdown" above and secure yourself a copy of the box set before they're all going. Look at what happened to the toilet paper, people - get a clue!