(Don't miss MacKaye's vicious double-tracked vocals, either.) As always, MacKaye and Picciotto's noise-terrorism-as-guitar-joust avoids flashiness, used as much as rhythm as punctuation device. Anemic revs spiked by pig squeals (or is it a screeching train?) highlight the title track, one of the band's finest moments. A guitar magazine even rated Repeater as one of the best guitar records of the '90s, and rightfully so. Likewise, the guitar playing and interaction of Ian MacKaye and Guy Picciotto almost always get overlooked, thanks to all the other subjects brought up when the band is talked about. Few rhythm sections of the time had the great interplay of Joe Lally and Brendan Canty. But - and that's a big but - Repeater nearly matches the Fugazi and Margin Walker EPs with its musical invention and skill, spewing out another group of completely invigorating songs, which makes the subject matter and finger-pointing a little easier to swallow. The title makes sense, if only by mistake. They could have been yelling about filing their taxes the yelling begins to fade into a din after a while. It's not too difficult to see why the band was allegedly lacking a sense of humor at this stage. Though not lacking any sense of conviction, Repeater honestly gets a little stifling. Lines/slogans like "When I need something/I reach out and grab it," "You are not what you own," "I was caught with my hand in the till," and "Everything is greed" bear this out.
Fugazi repeater update#
“ With its righteous disdain for capitalism and the almighty dollar, Repeater sounds like an angrier American update of Gang of Four's Solid Gold, which had been made ten years earlier. Before that, this is what Rough Trade say about a classic debut: I am going to bring in a couple of reviews for Repeater soon. You can get a vinyl copy of Repeater here (if there are stock shortages, it is worth checking it out on Discogs). Going from a band who were jamming tracks and performing live, they were in the studio from July-September 1989 working on their debut.
By 1989, Fugazi were writing more as a unit (before, the tracks were written by lead/guitarist Ian MacKaye) they came back from touring and started to refine and work on songs for Repeater.
band, it was released in April 1990 (in May 1990, it was released on C.D., bundled with the 3 Songs E.P. The first full-length album from the Washington D.C.
Because I have been listening to Repeater, I wanted to recommend it for this Vinyl Corner. They are a band I am aware of but have never spent a lot of time with. I have included Fugazi in any of my features before.