BACK IN STOCK.

The CD version of Legacy Of Fertility contains all of the reissued Th'Inbred material, but for these limited-edition vinyl reissues, the material has been spread out across two separate LPs. This first LP comes on red vinyl and features the A Family Affair LP and the Reproduction 7", and includes an insert with the complete lyrics and liner notes. Limited edition of 946 copies!

Who would have thought that one of the most inventive hardcore bands on the East Coast back in the 80's would have come from West Virginia? Not known as an epicenter for underground rock, West Virginia has only produced a couple of bands that left any sort of mark, with Th'Inbred being one of the most well- known. Not only were Th'Inbred one of the most creative hardcore bands to emerge from the 80's hardcore scene on the East Coast, the band was also the only hardcore band from West Virginia to ever reach any sort of notoriety during that era (or any era since). And yet due to most of their music being tough to come by over the past two decades, Th'Inbred slipped into obscurity, with few outside of the Killed By Death/hardcore vinyl collecting scene knowing just how amazing this band was. Th'Inbred came out of the liberal college town of Morgantown in the early 80's, influenced by the then-current hardcore of Black Flag, Dead Kennedys, Corrosion Of Conformity, Minor Threat and Bad Brains, but they also cited 70's prog rock, Pere Ubu, Captain Beefheart, and 70's proto-metal as major catalysts for their sound as well, and followed a similar trajectory as Black Flag as they moved from straight-ahead punk aggression into equally furious but more complex and dynamic music that incorporated elements of prog and jazz into their three minute blasts of aggression, and were just as comfortable breaking into their live cover of King Crimson's "Red" as ripping through a blazing hardcore set.

The band released one seven-inch on their own in 1985, followed by two albums on Toxic Shock Records and a couple of tours before they broke up in 1988; all three of their releases have been out of print for years, but Alternative Tentacles has just released these complete studio recordings on both cd and vinyl; for anyone into 80's hardcore, all three Th'Inbred records are essential listening, and the last album is especially illuminating as it saw the band getting into even proggier territory that started to get them comparisons to Victims Family. The CD version of Legacy collects all three of these releases, while the material is spread out across two separate LPs, both of which are on limited-edition colored vinyl.

The band's Reproduction 7" from 1985 featured six songs of blazing thrash, but even this early in their career, Th'Inbred showed off chops that were much more advanced than those of their three-chord chuggin' hardcore peers. The songs dealt with the increasing influx of lunkheads in the punk scene ("Scene Death"), economic slavery ("The Shitpile"), assembly-line mass media entertainment ("eMpTyV"), consumerism ("Fantasy Express"), references to Debord's treatise on Situationist thought La Societe du spectacle ("Packaged Time"), and a mostly instrumental track called "U.$. Of @" that foreshadows the proggier thrash that the band would explore on their first album. AS it stands though, this EP is pretty fucking raging, equal parts goofy and sarcastic humor and biting social criticism set to a blazing hardcore thrash soundtrack with the occasional detour into spacey, textural rock.

With 1986's A Family Affair LP, Th'Inbred came into their own with a ripping twelve song burst of prog-punk energy that still blows me away to this day. Starting off with "Exercise #1", the album launches into a complex prog instrumental that sounds similar to what Black Flag was doing at the time, but the guitar sound is more textured, the stop-on-a-dime riffing more jazz-influenced, like hearing King Crimson sped up to whiplash tempos. The band drops another one of these instrumental jams towards the end of the album, and in between the rest of Affair is mostly fierce, raging hardcore reminiscent of Dead Kennedys. Riffs go from speedy thrash to weird off-time rhythms and jazzy time signature changes and Zeppelin-esque rock, setting them apart from most of the hardcore scene. Again, the derisive lyrics and thoughtful (but pissed off) critiques of both the hardcore scene and society at large were delivered by the singer's furious howling, but there's a dark sense of humor that was always at work in Th'Inbred that prevented them from ever getting too heavy-handed.

This collection has been a long time coming. The cd version is an exhaustive collection of Th'Inbred's music, and comes with a thick booklet (or in the case of the LPs, insert sheet) that has extensive liner notes on the history of Th'Inbred written by Welly from the British hardcore fanzine Artcore as well as a ton of flyer reproductions and the lyrics for all three releases. As someone who was turned on to Th'Inbred by a buddy from West Virginia years after the band broke up and only had their music on a ratty Coke-stained TDK cassette, I'm thrilled that I finally have a definitive copy of this music, and

Alternative Tentacles did a terrific job of putting this together. Not only is all of this stuff essential listening to anyone interested in quirky, furious hardcore punk, newer hardcore fans are sure to have their minds blown by the complex thrash that these guys were busting out more than twenty years ago. Highly recommended.