The pressures of hardcore success and influence took a constant, heavy toll throughout the tumultuous history of
the Cro-Mags. Shortly after releasing their first (and perhaps the
hardcore genre's most important) release,
The Age of Quarrel, the constant personality conflicts and lineup changes began, setting the outfit into a slow, downward, creative spiral. The mixing and matching of New York
hardcore veteran musicians was unceasing, and the band never released successive discs with identical lineups. At the eye of the storm, founding member and "The world's first skinhead"
Harley Flanagan hired and fired almost a dozen musicians (including himself) during
the Cro-Mags' tumultuous career.
Age of Quarrel vocalist
John "Bloodclot" Joseph left the band before the follow-up,
Best Wishes, only to join up with
Flanagan years later for two releases, including
Near Death Experience, giving the disc two-thirds
The Age of Quarrel troika representation before another breakup led to six years of inactivity. It's often assumed that the teaming of
Flanagan and
Joseph was key to the band's early success, but careful credit inspection reveals guitarist
Parris Mayhew's significant music-writing contributions on
The Age of Quarrel and
Best Wishes, clearly
the Cro-Mags' best and most influential recordings. Although
Flanagan and
Joseph muster a little of the old-time magic,
Mayhew's absence is noticeable from
Near Death Experience. While the band's trademark lyrical preoccupations with urban violence and modern man's separation from nature, the past, and spirituality are fully present and accounted for, this 1993 release lumbers through too many bad
metal cliches and never reaches the level of musical intensity fans of
Mayhew-era recordings will expect. The already low creative standard of
Near Death Experience reaches its nadir as
Joseph forces some bad
Steven Tyler yelping during the
"Mr. Brownstone" rip-off
"War on the Streets" and reaches rock bottom again during the
Dokken-style
metal chunking of
"The Other Side of Madness." Flanagan and company salvage a few decent tracks like the epic
"Time I Am" and
"Say Good-Bye to Mother Earth," keeping
Near Death Experience on rickety life support. Missing the intensity of earlier, better work, this late-career release from the legendary
Cro-Mags is just a cooling ember, left over from New York's '80s
hardcore fire. ~ Vincent Jeffries
