[Twenty-One minutes and Thirty-Six seconds.]

I fix the needle gently into its groove and I’m greeted by bass-snare bass-snare bass-snare and an iconic Ian MacKaye yell.

Betray opens the album with a tight snare drum fill and two chord progressions on guitar. Lyrically it’s Ian thinking aloud to himself. It’s difficult to tell whether he’s been betrayed by a close friend or his past self. The same way he could have gotten close and grown apart from another person could have easily happened in his own mind. ‘Goddamnit. We were supposed to stay young. Now it’s over, it’s finished, it’s done.’ In classic MacKaye fashion, his screams turn to spoken word as he completes the song with a definitive “The. End.”

Betray fades out and welcomes in a rumbling bass intro: the drums match the tempo, and the guitar mirrors the bass. It Follows represents everything I love about Minor Threat in the first place. It’s sloppy, it’s quick, light and heavy at the same time. From yelling, to speaking, and back to yelling again. And that simple chorus, chanted by the quintet: “It followed me! It followed me! It followed me! It followed me!” And I begin to question what followed him. “I thought I had outrun it, when I crossed the tracks. I thought I had gotten away, when it tapped me on the back.” Between the first and second songs on the album, I interpret anxiety as the culprit. There’ve been too many times that I felt betrayed by my own thoughts and my own mind when I thought I’ve left anxiety and depression in the past only to realize it followed me.

The black sheep prances along the vinyl quicker than I’m ready to flip it over. Side A finishes off with Think Again and Look Back & Laugh. Themes of Betray and It Follows fill these two tracks as well, and the ideas of anxiety and self awareness continue with lines like “Something’s not right inside, and I can’t always put it aside.”

Sob Story kicks off Side B of the record and again Ian bashes whoever wronged him. Claiming sarcastically “Boy I’m glad I’m not in your shoes.” But right as it begins to seem like there really is another person who’s working against him, the next song starts. No Reason works in six lines of lyrics where Ian’s voice sings along with itself. “Sit in the same room, we look the other way. Fuck conversation, we’ve got nothing to say. I’m sure we both hate to be ignored. Haven’t we met some place before?” For the first time in the album I think that we get a hint that Ian’s turmoil comes from within. And then there’s the next track.

Little Friend

“There are no words

For what I want to say

No description

For what I feel

It’s a non-emotion

It’s something gray

Way down

Inside of me

You could call it anger

You could call it fear

You could call it frustration

That’s as close as you’ll get

Now I’m waiting

For security

There’s something racing

Inside of me

I’m waiting, I’m waiting

For a sign

Waiting for something

Got nothing but time

You could call it anger

You could call it fear

You could call it frustration

That’s as close as you’ll get

And you could call it anger

You could call it fear

You could call it frustration

And you’d still be wrong

And why not?

I said I’m waiting

Waiting for a sign

Just me and my little friend

He’s deep inside”

Whether alone, or with his little friend, Ian portrays his feeling of being Out of Step from the first song to the last.

“I can’t keep up. I can’t keep up. I can’t keep up.

Out. Of. Step. With the world.”