Misfits - Static Age Review

Like many of their punk-rock peers, The Misfits’ popularity has grown exponentially since their humble beginnings in Lodi, New Jersey, a satellite to the blossoming punk scene in New York. Unlike many of their peers — The Ramones, Black Flag, The Damned, just to name a few — there has been little critical reassessment of their career over the past three decades. Even devotees of ’70s punk tend to regard the band as a bit of a guilty pleasure, which is unfortunate; The Misfits’ early output holds up much better than most of their contemporaries — and yes, that’s including The Ramones, Black Flag, and The Damned.

Static Age is a peculiar document, the debut album that never was. Recorded in 1978 on 30 hours of donated time from Mercury Records (Both the Misfits and Mercury were using the name “Blank Records” to publish music; Mercury traded them a recording session for the exclusive rights), the session was meant to yield the band’s first full-length. When Mercury passed on its option to release it, The ’Fits decided to split the tracks up among the Bullet, Horror Business, and Beware EPs. Even so, a good chunk of music would not see the light of day until 1986, with the posthumous release of the basement tape-quality Legacy of Brutality. It was another 10 years before Static Age was released in its entirety, this time as part of the band’s boxed set. Then, as a huge “fuck you” to anyone who bought the set, Caroline released the album as a stand-alone disc one year later, remastered with bonus tracks....full text This album finally did it for me. No more of this shitty, pathetic punk rock band. The songs on this album are nothing more than absurd and poorly executed trash. Glenn Danzig to me is horribly overrated and not impressive at all. I honestly question why I ever liked this punk band, if you can actually considered it PUNK. It must have been my extreme ignorance, being relatively new to punk rock and desperately grabbing for anything that seemed punk. It's actually funny. I see people regularly, that flaunt their love for the Misfits. From lame band t-shirts, wristbands, socks, and that god-AWFUL devilock. This is NOT punk. If you really want some punk rock, then I would highly recommend The Damned, The Clash, Wipers, Minutemen, Nomeansno, Dead Kennedys,etc. but NOT this. If you truly LIKE this shit, then I would have to say that you are in sore need of mental help. I would rather ingest copious amounts of diarrhea mixed with menstrual fluids while being raped with glass shards than listen to this inhuman waste. I'm done....full text Static Age was originally recorded in the winter of 1978 and was intended to be The Misfits' debut album, but was never officially released due to some record company difficulties. When lead singer Glenn Danzig left the band in 1983 after the release of the album Earth A.D./Wolfsblood to work on other projects, The Misfits eventually dissolved. They would soon after release the Earth A.D./Die Die My Darling compilation in 1984, Legacy of Brutality, a compilation of rarities and outtakes album titled a self titled "best of" compilation in 1986 and then finally the very short Die Die My Darling in 1987 (The Misfits discography can be very confusing at first). That is a lot of albums to be released shortly after a band had just broken up. But that would be the last of the Misfits releases for quite some time. Fans did however, get a taste of some more Misfits material with the Collection/Box Set released in 1995, but it was just made up of songs from previous albums, but still a nice collection. Finally, ten years after their last official release, now 1997, the band was able to release the album that they wanted to nearly twenty years earlier. Because the band wasn't able to release the album when they planned to, many of these songs were later included on various collections (nine tracks are taken from Legacy of Brutality) and EPs. But this album takes away all the discography confusion, and puts them all on one record, the way The Misfits originally wanted them to be....full text