One Last Wish - 1986 LP

Hear me out on this one! It certainly looks like a landfill post-hardcore record, but it’s a satisfying and underrated minor chapter in the ‘Our Band Could Be Your Life’ post 1st wave USHC, pre-”indie rock” period. 

It’s hard to follow all those little Dischord bands that imploded, so no worries if you weren’t aware (or don’t care) that One Last Wish are essentially part Rites Of Spring with Michael Hampton of The Faith (whose last EP ‘Subject To Change’ is absolutely GOAT-ed) on guitar.

It’s not quite the unhinged ball of energy that is the Rites Of Spring LP, but thankfully it’s not Matchbox 20 either. Recorded in 1986, these DC fellows seem to have absorbed a fair bit of British music from a few years earlier where the pogo became more pensive but also developed a neon sheen. A sense of pulsing melody inherited from Chairs Missing, Gen X, Blitz - New Age single, Magazine, early U2 (lol), the song Public Image, but with that can’t-sit-still RoS energy.  Or stateside think Husker Du - Metal Circus, Mission Of Burma, Moving Target etc. 

I’m thoroughly enjoying discovering these great little arteries of DC punk, it’s brought me almost as much joy getting into Steve Tucker era Morbid Angel. - Nic