Black Flag – My War LP

‘My War’ is the second studio album by American band Black Flag. It polarized fans on its release in 1984 over the B-side, on which the band slowed down to a heavy, Black Sabbath-esque trudge, despite the reputation the band had earned as leaders in fast hardcore punk on its first album, “Damaged” (1981).

The line-up had shrunk from five members to three: vocalist Henry Rollins, drummer Bill Stevenson, and co-founding guitarist Greg Ginn. Ginn doubled on bass guitar under the name “Dale Nixon” for the recording as he had pushed out co-founding bassist Chuck Dukowski shortly before recording; the album includes two tracks Dukowski wrote.

The six tracks on the A-side of the LP are generally high-paced, thrashy hardcore, featuring guitar solos unusual in punk. On the B-side are three tracks in a sludge metal style, each breaching six-minutes with ponderously slow tempos and unrelenting dark lyrics of self-hatred. The band members had grown their hair long when they toured the album in 1984, further alienating their hardcore skinhead fanbase. My War had a major influence on metal, grunge and rock.