Review by Daniel for Permanent Damage - End of Innocence (1987)

It was only within the last year that I really discovered the sole full-length album from Melbourne hardcore punk act Permanent Damage & the experience excited me. The crossover thrash component of the album saw me getting a touch over-enthusiastic & I feel like I jumped the gun a little bit on claiming "End of Innocence" as an unheralded gem of the early crossover movement. This is my first revisit since that time & I feel like I've been able to see through the weeds a little bit better this time & have come out with a slightly different take on it. I still enjoy the album quite a bit, perhaps even more than I did on those initial sessions, but the additional scrutiny I've given the album on a track-by-track basis has seen me questioning my previous position a bit, not in relation to the merits of "End of Innocence" as a piece of art but more around the validity of Permanent Damage's claims to a place at the Metal Academy table. 

A couple of weeks ago, I found myself experimenting with Permanent Damage's earlier self-titled single from 1985, a three-song affair that offered nothing much in the way of metal & which led me to this reassessment of the band's 1987 album. As with the other Melbourne hardcore acts I've been playing around with in recent months (see Depression, Vicious Circle, etc.), Permanent Damage started out as a pure punk outfit before allowing the surging global metal movement to infiltrate their sound. By the time the band had entered the studio to record "End of Innocence" they were a much more potent force though & one has to wonder about how much these underground acts influenced each other in this regard. There had been significant changes to Permanent Damage's lineup in the two years since the single with original drummer Jenk having been replaced by Danny O'Callahan who also spent some time with fellow Melbourne hardcore/crossover band Depression where Jenk's brother Spike had handled the vocal duties during their early days so the scene was certainly a little bit incestuous at the time. Peter Young had also been added as a second guitarist with Young handling the lead duties while Izy Semovic played the supporting rhythm guitar role. It's unclear as to how much of an impact these changes had had on Permanent Damage's sound (if any) but if I had to guess I'd say that Permanent Damage had picked up a bit of their more metallic direction from Depression who were the more established band at the time.

"End of Innocence" was recorded in two days at S.S. Studio in Sydney & was mastered at the legendary Studio 301 which is, interestingly enough, where I had my own solo CD mastered back in 1999. The resulting record sounds great too with the production job nicely balancing the raw electricity of a live hardcore band with the clarity required to give it a level of accessibility. The album opens in a really energetic fashion with three of the thrashier songs landing in quick succession. Front man Manny Maragoudakis does a great job at summoning the audience to throw themselves around the house, car, mosh pit or any other venue they may have chosen for the task & I find him to be quite a charismatic figure whose use of phrasing has a habit of drawing me in & commanding my undivided attention. The metal component starts to take a backward seat through the middle of the album though with hardcore punk being the dominant force across the majority of the record, so much so that I've had to rethink my earlier position on Permanent Damage's right to be here at the Academy. Overall, I think I was a little hasty in awarding them a crossover thrash badge because I now feel that that was perhaps a little ambitious. Of the sixteen tracks on offer here, I'd suggest that only five of them really warrant a thrash tag which isn't enough for me to go with a dual tagging. The thrash component ends up being more of an influence than a protagonist when the album is viewed holistically so I've been forced to back down on my previous position in this regard.

Despite this revelation, I've still found myself enjoying "End of Innocence" quite a bit & it's definitely worth a few listens for fans of the metallic hardcore sound. Album highlight "Victim of Misery" is honestly one of the best hardcore tracks I've ever heard & has thoroughly blown me away this week, repeatedly urging me to reach for the skip button in order to replay it while taking the long drive to work each morning. Crossover thrash opener "Warcry" is also really strong, as is energetic hardcore outing "Sniff Your Defeat". There are only a couple of flatter moments across the sixteen tracks too with the hardcore/crossover hybrid "Live for Life" & the lighter-weight hardcore number "Kill for Lies" both falling a little short of the mark for me personally. Still, it's hard to be too critical because the track lengths are quite short which means that any blemishes are short-lived. During the back end of the album you can also find a couple of more expansive & experimental tracks that add some interest with both the title track & closer "Time" sitting further over into post-hardcore territory than they do your more frantic & red-blooded hardcore punk space.

While I'm disappointed that I can no longer consider "End of Innocence" as one of my favourite crossover thrash records, I am excited that I've discovered yet another world class Aussie hardcore record. I honestly had no idea that we had so many great hardcore bands during the 1980's & I think Melbourne must have been a great place to be if you were a snot-nosed, mohawk-wearing punk rocker at the time. I don't think too many fans of the genre will be disappointed with "End of Innocence", even if it's perhaps not quite as vital or as metal as the better Depression work from the same period.

For fans of Depression, Condemned? & Vicious Circle.