or better or worse, we here at Stylus, in all of our autocratic consumer-crit greed, are slaves to timeliness. A record over six months old is often discarded, deemed too old for publication, a relic in the internet age. That's why each week at Stylus, one writer takes a look at an album with the benefit of time. Whether it has been unjustly ignored, unfairly lauded, or misunderstood in some fundamental way, we aim with On Second Thought to provide a fresh look at albums that need it.

"The heresy of one age becomes the orthodoxy of the next." -- Helen Keller

More than any other band, Black Flag deserves credit for establishing the underground as we know it. Driving heedlessly into poverty and uncertainty, it was Black Flag who established the touring networks that hundreds of bands would adhere to. Their independence and devotion gave birth to the most significant independent label of all time. SST was the first label that made independence both financially and artistically viable; the former eventually, the latter perpetually. They were champions of punk rock that didn’t sound like punk rock, touring with and releasing albums by the Minutemen, Husker Du, Dinosaur Jr. and Sonic Youth while American hardcore crippled itself with definitions, rules and fashion. They slaved, they starved, they bled; and while all the suffering visited upon Black Flag was for the sake of their art and their principles, it is us and the bands we admire now who are the true benefactors. We are Black Flag’s legacy.

“What does not destroy me makes me stronger.” -- Friedrich Nietzsche

It is Damaged that is most often hailed as Black Flag’s—and American punk’s—masterpiece, but My War is where the band and Henry Rollins finally and fully coalesced. Rollins’ vocals ruined Damaged. Listen to his massacre of “Six Pack”, his boring reworking of “Damaged I”, his too goofy handling of “T.V. Party”, and the uncomfortable, underdeveloped “rage” that he attempts to carry “Rise Above”, “Gimme Gimme Gimmie” and “Depression” with. Rollins did not fit in with Black Flag on Damaged. He was too young, too fresh, too star-struck (and still trying to fill the shoes of the band’s best vocalist, Dez Cadena). It took a few years of sleeping on floors, scavenging for food, being spat on (on stage; in the street) and taking a nightly beating from sceptical morons to get Rollins in shape. There is no romanticizing Rollins’ transformation: it was an ugly, horrifying ordeal for a guy just out of his teens to have to endure, but that is what made him fit Black Flag. By the time My War was recorded, Rollins was a walking scar. He was hardened, focused, disgusted and hungry, but also was he finally in the position to contribute to the band’s finest album.

“If bands on Epitaph are punk, then what are Black Flag for Christ’s sake? Those bands sound like the Village People compared to Black Flag” -- Buzz Osbourne

My War is what punk rock was to have always been: ugly and explosive; unexpected and strange. It’s a lumbering, loathing, sludge-encrusted experiment in hatred orchestrated by a guitarist who worshipped the Grateful Dead. The entire band clicks on My War, but it’s Greg Ginn who shines. Abandoning the belief that playing fast actually means something, Ginn was finally able to grow his hair. While the Ramones and the Germs were still to be found in Black Flag’s sound, it was Ginn’s heroes Black Sabbath, the Stooges and his beloved Dead who would shape the band’s remaining days. The slowness of the songs helped pound home the angst and misery of the lyrics, but more than anything, it distanced the band from a musical movement that was growing weak and redundant, falling into self-parody and fascism, two of the main targets Black Flag had set their sights on when they helped invent hardcore in the first place.

“If you don’t risk anything, you risk even more.” -- Erica Jong

My War was the most adventurous punk rock album of its time, and it says a lot about the state of American punk in 1984 when you consider that it was hated almost universally. That willingness to be hated made Black Flag all the more powerful. It is only when a band loses total regard for outside opinions that it begins to grow, and My War is one of the most scathing, unflinching portraits of growth ever documented. The best tracks fall outside the sludge parameters—the frenetic, prog-y discord and phlegm-y, throaty screech of the title track; the pointillistic shredding of “Forever Time”—and if the entire album sounded like those songs, My War would have easily become the defining moment in American rock. Don’t think Black Flag didn’t realize this. They knew they could rule American punk forever, but why rule a complacent kingdom when there are so many new territories to devour, so many new enemies to destroy?

Black Flag left them all headless. “Can’t Decide” is big, trudging rock that is irritatingly long; long like Flipper, long like the Melvins. “Beat My Head Against the Wall” continues the messiness, teetering between Sabbath choruses, Black Flag verses and unpredictable, noodly breaks. The quintessential Black Flag song, “Beat My Head” is uncomfortable, uncompromising, unpredictable and totally self-indulgent. That’s not the checklist for punk. That’s the checklist for art.

It’s only the third song and all expectations have already been subverted. You still have to wrap your head around the formless guitar solos of “Forever Time”, squint at the chaotic crookedness of “The Swinging Man”, break your neck on “I Love You” and endure the merciless “Scream”. Throw in a couple of songs that are over six minutes each and My War becomes more a test than an album. You will be stronger for having taken it, just as independent music is stronger because Black Flag formulated it.

“Practice what you preach.” -- Proverb

This is the punk rock that paved the way for No Means No, the Melvins, Fugazi, Refused, Discordance Axis and the Dillinger Escape Plan; punk rock that flexes and grows and transforms even as you’re listening to it. It is punk rock that bows to the will of the artist and not the other way around. My War is everyone’s war, but few have waged it so magnificently.

“All the ZZ Top records were in the Flag lexicon, as well as MC5, Velvet Underground, Sabbath, AC/DC with Bon Scott, Captain Beyond—stoner rock. Not much punk rock...Punk was too lightweight for Ginn and Dukowski. They’d look at punks and go, ‘Pussies. You’re too busy with your eye make-up to get crazy’... I’d play the Damned and these guys would look at me and say, ‘Are you fucking kidding me?’” -- Henry Rollins (taken from American Hardcore by Steven Blush)