So one day I see an ad for a 7" by a new "supergroup" featuring members of No For An Answer, Unity and Justice League. Who are also on the same label as a recent favorite, Triggerman. And described with those 2 magic words: melodic hardcore. Money order sent off to Ringside Records!
When that first Ignite 7" arrived, it didn't leave the turntable for a while. Like a lot of OC hardcore, they had an interesting take on old school hardcore. The music carried the tradition, but there were slower, DC style moments. The lyrics were emotional and semi vague, like other bands across genres at the time. And the vocalist was the icing on the cake. Randy Johnson had previously yelled for Pushed Aside, but here his vocals were like when Dave Smalley went from DYS to Dag Nasty. A perfect fit for the band.
I eventually learned of another Ignite release on the dreaded Lost & Found Records, so I tracked that down. It contained the songs from the 7", 2 more Randy songs and 3 songs with their first singer, Joe Foster from Triggerman? What? I had no idea. His songs were really good too, but I preferred Randy's voice.
Finally they put out a full length on Conversion Records. 16 songs?! This is going to be amazing! Plunk it on the old CD player...
...Uh, what the fuck? Where's Randy?? Why is Luciano Pavarotti singing now???
I guess the news of their lineup change never reached me. Call On My Brothers was a huge letdown. I can hang with Past Our Means, but an entire album of operatic hardcore is too much for me to take. Especially when I was anticipating a Can I Say for the 90's.
I've compiled all the pre Zoli stuff here. The Ash Return demo (featuring Joe Foster) was released on a split CD with X-Acto. The audio isn't the greatest, but I tried to clean it up a little more, taking out some of the hiss and balancing the volumes. I think it sounds better now.
Scarred For Life CD (1994)
01) Automatic
02) Slow
03) Where They Talk
04) Shade
05) Turn
06) Ash Return
07) Should Have Known
08) Scarred For Life
Ash Return Demo (1993)
09) Ash Return
10) Distance
11) Slow
12) Should Have Known
13) Far Away
14) Sided
Ignite - Where They Were (vbr 0)
