"Punk Rock should mean freedom, liking and accepting everything that you like, playing whatever you want, as sloppy as you want as long as it's good and has passion." Leave it to a band that exuded and wore passion on its sleeves to open their album with a sampled quote of Kurt Cobain to emphasize this facet of their collective personality. Accurately describing Pg.99 according to genre would be a sleight to them. It would require a few dirty words that are misused to describe vapid boys horridly singing about girls. This band emotes anger, loss, pain, hope, etc. They run the gamut of human emotion in their music.
Document #8 sees Pg.99 at the top of their craft. The album is a powerful statement by a fiercely independent band that evokes their passionate live performance. "In Love With an Apparition" is a crash course in musical dynamicism that includes the most non-cliched hand clapping part ever in punk rock's history. "Your Face is a Rape Scene" is an excellent example of how to use guitars as a percussive instrument rather than just a riff machine. The panning sound section ends the song in an apropos manner. "We Left as Skeletons" could be dangerous for the emotionally disturbed. As the song slows down, it becomes emotionally heavy and oppressive feeling, and as the music slowly gives up, one could mistake it as the soundtrack for the tragic slow death of a human being. Not only is "Punk Rock in the Wrong Hands" a lyrical indictment of the current consumer culture that has ensnared punk rock, but the music itself sounds like an aural shaming of those people who use punk for monetary gain and choking the freedom for which punk could stand. "The Hallowed out Chest of a Dead Horse" just might be my favorite song on the album. It's a great song that sounds like a story being told and has the musical pacing of an amazing and epic movie.
Document #8 is not a new record. It is a much-needed reissue of an album that has been out of print for a while. This has been re-mastered with slight variations on the packaging and artwork as well. Musically, the album is gloriously unpolished mayhem. Pg.99 was and still is an important touchstone in punk rock. Years from now, when most of us move on to horribly boring lives with meaningless existences, this record should stand as a poignant album that captured its time, but it probably won't because even great records go under appreciated.
