BAD RELIGION: SUFFER

SCORE: 90/100

Fast-paced skate punk that captures the sounds that would make 2000s skate culture as bold as it was - but much before this culture had even bloomed. The fact that this album was released in 1988 deeply surprised me as it feels like something straight out of the 90s/2000s skateboarding boom - but it's albums like this that helped to gradually build up the culture.

The sound of this album is exactly what you could possibly want from a skate punk record, it's fast, sharp, and full of energy that is genuinely infectious and deeply enjoyable to listen to at every point. The songs are short and the album whips passed in just 26 minutes; but punk projects use short runtimes best. The formatting of this album follows the standard that makes all punk albums so great - and it expands on the clear blueprint to make something that stands out from the crowd.

'Suffer' is mixed incredibly well and the instrumentals are of particularly high quality. The vocal performances on the album are heavily suitable for the genre as a whole and the sound is so deeply cohesive it's hard not to get roped right in to this album. It's an album that will make you want to do everything with speed and agile ability, and it's one of those projects that is so full of energy that it makes it impossible to ignore for even a second.

A lot of this album does sound the same - but it makes it that much more cohesive as a whole. It's a project that is best heard in full; and it's an absolute essential in the punk genre. The hugely consistent and high-quality sound of this album makes it enjoyable from front to back. This album has the classic punk sound done in a way that sounds highly modern and polished for being a late-80s album, and it stands out from other albums in the genre for the sheer quality of it alone.