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Outside In(fluence): Desperate Times - "Peace At Last" album review

Desperate Times are a band from Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. I've never been there or anywhere near there. Some members of this band are in a Facebook group I'm in called Warehouse of Strangers and were looking for a review of their new album Peace at Last.


The cover art to Peace at Last is very metal, though Desperate Times isn't a metal band. There's the grim reaper holding a destroyed world and standing over skulls. The background is an assortment of scratches and chains and stuff. It's kind of roughly done, but it fits the album well even if it isn't perfectly rendered.


"Enough" starts the album off with screeching feedback into full-speed fury. What I can understand of the lyrics is cool - "I've had enough!". I like the short and discordant guitar solo. "Peering" is a grim thought about the "abyss of our future". I've been worrying a lot about this same thing in the last few months due to losing my job, government issues, and the state of the environment. The song brings a similar anxious quality, and I like the breakdowns that provide a state of clarity that clearly states these types of worries. It's an interesting juxtaposition. "Class War" is the last song on the first side. The guitar sounds great. This song has some extra sonic space which I appreciate.

"Prison" starts with an intro like a sci-fi film, but it's reality about prisons; we don't even need a dystopian future for this monologue. I was less impressed as it started, the vocals being a repeated "and they are" about the state of prison cruelty, but there are some other things here too. I like the idea of minimalist lyrics and the like, but I felt like the phrase "and they are" doesn't stand on its own like it should for something of this nature. "False Till True" has a cool chord progression, and the lyrics go off like a chant. The last song is a cover of "Some of Us Scream, Some of Use Shout" by Flux of Pink Indians, a band that I have not listened to enough. This song was a bit poppier than the others, except perhaps "Class War", though I wouldn't call either of these pop songs. To respond to the song, I don't think that it's too late for us to change. It's a tough fight though.

Peace at Last is a screechy and hard punk album along the lines of Crass and the like. I enjoyed it overall, though these types of things aren't my favorite. If you like peace punk/anarcho-punk, you'll probably dig this one.

Peace at Last receives a Good.

Halifax's Desperate Times yowl about the end of the world on "Peace at Last", an anarcho peace punk platitude.