Band:	Discharge
Album:	Why?
Style:	D-beat, Punk, Hardcore
Release date:	1981

01. Visions Of War
02. Does This System Work?
03. A Look At Tomorrow
04. Why?
05. Maimed And Slaughtered
06. Mania For Conquest
07. Ain't No Feeble Bastard
08. Is This To Be?
09. Massacre Of Innocence (Air Attack)
10. Why? [Reprise]
11. Realities Of War [CD Reissue bonus]
12. They Declare It [CD Reissue bonus]
13. But After The Gig [CD Reissue bonus]
14. Society's Victim [CD Reissue bonus]
15. Fight Back [CD Reissue bonus]
16. War's No Fairytale [CD Reissue bonus]
17. Always Restrictions [CD Reissue bonus]
18. You Take Part In Creating This System [CD Reissue bonus]
19. Religion Instigates [CD Reissue bonus]
20. Decontrol [CD Reissue bonus]
21. It's No T.V. Sketch [CD Reissue bonus]
22. Tomorrow Belongs To Us [CD Reissue bonus]

Through the years, philosophers have spent years trying to address questions blighting humanity in eloquent, prim and proper tones. Discharge serve to throw this convention out of the window and piss on it from a great height; rather than beat around the bush, the band take the direct route and beat you over the head with the same questions.

Discharge's Why? is the fourth shot in a barrage that would see the D-Beat sound rip the door off its hinges and for hardcore punk and grindcore bands to walk through and take the stage; from Metallica to Napalm Death, the amount of bands in debt to Discharge is a long one.

With the sparks that fly from off with "Visions Of War", Why? is an EP akin to scorched earth of which you see unfold around you as you continue to listen. Searing itself onto your psyche, tracks like "Maimed And Slaughtered", "A Look At Tomorrow" and "Does This System Work" will melt down any scepticism you may have had and forge it anew through fire. Each track as unrelenting and in your face as the last, rather than politely ask for answers, this is the sound of distilled anger thrown squarely in your line of sight.

The D-beat stylings of Discharge are pervasive throughout, each track propelled along the tracks until it comes careening full speed to its conclusion and smashing head on into the sonic wall therein. Ellesmere's drums are the engine of the band's sound, to which Roberts' and Wainwright's guitar and bass respectively are bolted on top of to create this lumbering juggernaut of an EP.

The production work can best be described as abrasive; it does an admirable job of making a coherent and solid sound out of the pure anarchic energy the band conjure with these tracks. It will not win any awards anytime soon, but it will allow the incinerating package of pure energy to bounce around your skull through your speakers, which is just as admirable.

Listen and learn, a seminal piece of work from a band whose impact on heavy music doesn't get nearly the amount of credit it is due.