The Minutemen
may have come out of the same California hardcore scene that produced
Black Flag
,
Circle Jerks
, and
Fear
, but they not only bore little resemblance to their West Coast contemporaries, they didn't sound much like anyone else in American rock at that time.
The Punch Line
was the band's first album, packing 18 tunes into less than 25 minutes, and if the music shares hardcore's lust for speed and assaultive rhythmic punch, their sharp, fragmented melodies, complex tempos, and overtly poetic and political lyrics made clear they were rugged individuals; imagine
James Blood Ulmer
teaching
Wire
how to get funky and you start to get an idea of what
sounds like. It wasn't until the band began to slow down a bit on
What Makes a Man Start Fires?
that the strength of the group's individual songs became clear, and
works better as a unified sonic assault than as a collection of tunes, but moments do stand out, especially
"Tension,"
"Fanatics,"
and the title cut, which certainly lends a new perspective to Native American history.
was as wildly inventive as anything spawned by American punk, and the band would only get better on subsequent releases. ~ Mark Deming