On Damaged, Greg Ginn is one of the best punk guitarists I’ve ever heard. His semi-droning buzzsaw riffs are sharp enough to probably grind through metal if played at a high enough volume. Sadly, their edge is dulled by Henry Rollins’ dumb meathead lisp. He’s like the Rocky Balboa of vocalists, but at least Rocky had some deep masculinity to his tone. Rollins sounds like a frustrated teenager who’s trying to yell at his mom but can’t formulate he wants to say out of his mouth so he just kind of spits it all up instead.

Rollins isn’t remotely intimidating despite attempting to be, so you’ve got one unit of the band that sounds genuinely criminally dangerous and the other probably just skips school and swears a lot at a pubescent age. One simply chooses to be a rebel to be impress, the other is antisocial from birth. For that one, I’m not sure which is which.

I run contrary to its reputation. Damaged is the worst Rollins-era Black Flag album, and I’m glad I didn’t stop with it. Future albums’ bizarre experiments conveyed a deranged atmosphere that’s more in line with the dissatisfied adolescent outcast’s mind. And fearlessness is more “punk.” Get Slip It In and feel some real violence. Tell your friends it’s the best Black Flag album. Together, we can change the canon. Together, we will… “Rise Above.”