The Exploited

Beat The Bastards (Triple X)
by Joshua Brown

They’re baa-ack! Well, actually they never went away. They’re still postcard-quality punkers after 15 years, still unintentionally silly. Beat the Bastards is fast and loud as fuck, with a cretinous approach to leftist politics, as always. What’s different this time around is full-bodied production that actually makes them heavy as well as obnoxious. Wattie’s wheezy vocals are more guttural, reminiscent of early Discharge. This new-found heaviness is predictably accompanied by hyperspeed guitar solos that, surprisingly, aren’t annoying. The Exploited are not now, nor were they ever, in danger of crossing the gray and smudgy line between punk and heavy metal. If the Exploited aren’t punk, nobody is. While early 80’s releases like Punk’s Not Dead , Let’s Start a War…, and Troops of Tomorrow may have been more entertaining and relevant, the Exploited have never been this musically aggressive. I didn’t think they’d have it in them after all these years, but Beat the Bastards is one of their best releases in a lengthy discography.