Agnostic Front – United Blood (1983)


January 12th 2014 – New York hardcore defined!

Agnostic Front – United Blood

Not On Label ‎– AF 001 – 1983 – 7″

If I could turn back time and beam myself to a place, it would be with no doubt the first years of the 80’s in New York City. Hardcore bands like the Abused, the Worst (well NJ), Cause For Alarm, Heart Attack, Bad Brains, Murphy’s Law, Urban Waste and Antidote. Top that with regular visits by the DC or the Boston crew. Yeah, some might talk about the mighty US West coast scene but no … New York it is!!

This slammer was recorded by New York’s Agnostic Front, a band that was formed in Lower East Side of Manhattan in 1982. At that time Manhattan was not the tourist attraction, rather was a rough neighborhood. It for sure reflected lyric-wise as the EP is much about brotherhood and toughness. Claiming to be a band to unite the scene, but at the same time claiming to be a skinhead band a putting out an EP titled “United Blood” the band was up for trouble. This EP was followed up by the LP Victim In Pain (on Ratcage) in 1984 that put more gasoline on the fire of the antagonists, headed by Tim Yohannan of MMR who basically thought they were are bunch of fascists. If course stuff like that seems to make the band just more obnoxious resulting in gigs the “most hated band of the west coast” The Fuck-Ups and a tour called “Beat Up Tim Yohannan Tour”. The band had its crew and of course those who hated them. After this the band developed a more metalcore sound as they signed Combat and released two additional records, the last one being “Liberty & Justice For” on which is became evident that MMR has possible been wrong.

The singer Roger Miret and guitarist Vinny Stigma was in the band until they first folded in the early 90’s. On this EP the late Ray “Raybeez” Barbieri is doing the drumming, he more known as the singer of Warzone. On bass there is an Adam, a guy I don’t know anything about.

If you like hardcore you should really like this. And if you like this you should get the following LP. On that one Rob Kabula from Cause For Alarm plays bass. Interesting Alex Kinon of Cause of Alarm also played for Agnotic Front on their Cause of Alarm LP. A symbol of the people moved between bands in those times.

This EP have comes in two versions, this with the skinhead on side B and one which is a little bit more common having a white label on side B instead. It seems like a few copies also came with an insert. This copy does not have one.

More about the band and the current line-up, which out their web-page.

♬ Full 10 Song EP (MP3 320 kbps). Check images below for song titles.

Click on the images to expand them to higher resolution. The rips and images are from my record. The image of the label did not become to good. One is too yellow in the colour and the other to white/blue. Sorry, but I got a really shitty camera.


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3 comments

  1. Fab

    There is that great story about when the Worst would play NYC clubs around ’79 or so , their thrashy style even then would get them banned from clubs . so much so they reinvented themselves into a power pop group! they put out one single and then turned back into the awesomeness we know as the WORST! So in other words the WORST were playing early hardcore and NYC wasn’t ready for that until the Bad Brains layed the groundwork for them

  2. Uncle Al

    Adam is Adam Mucci, original bass player for my band Murphy’s Law. Thats me standing in the front row right with the cammo hat

    • the editor

      That is really cool, also another awesome band. Would love to post something, however I only post stuff I buy and I already got all your records. Killer stuff…

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