Records With History And Future

Just out on the streets is the first vinyl release of the Maximum Penalty 1989 demo. Maximum Penalty is a New York Hardcore band from the Lower East Side. They were active in the late 80’s.

A small background history of New York Hardcore is needed. In the early 80’s bands like Agnostic Front, The Abused, Antidote, Murphy’s Law and Cro-Mags originated the NYHC genre. They played a heavier and groovier kind of Hardcore Punk than the rest of the American Hardcore Punk bands. In the middle of the eighties to late eighties, there also was a wave of Straight-Edge bands like Youth Of Today, Gorilla Biscuits, Bold, Side by Side, etc. Maximum Penalty, Sheer Terror, Breakdown, Raw Deal and Outburst were other bands that stayed in more obscurity than the originators and the Straight-Edge bands that were released through Revelation Records. That is it in a nutshell.

The lyrics of the demo deal with living on the streets and the hard survival on those streets. The first song “Acceptance” is about accepting each other and standing up for a brother who is not accepted by other people. “Hate” is towards the problems in society that can’t be solved. And the will to revolve against the powers with the gathering of the common people. “Time Flies Fast” is an introspective song. “Brutality” is about the police violence and the call to fight back. “Be Yourself” is about people not being their selves and the request to be your self. Another songs dealing with street and gang violence and is called “All Your Boyz”. I think the last song “Living In Darkness” deals with the observation a person leaving a crew and end up in solitude…

Reaper Records has dragged the 1989 demo of Maximum Penalty out of obscurity and released it on vinyl for the first time. The packaging is of great quality. The cover is gatefold and has an embossed front. There is a 24 x 12 inch poster that has a print of the Maximum Penalty logo hand drawn. And on the back side there are the flyers of the shows Maximum Penalty played. Furthermore the printed inner sleeve has the lyrics to the songs and a huge MP logo.