Off!, Negative Approach, Bad Antics

[AARP-CORE] For a subculture founded on the principles of playing fast, dying young and obliterating the crusty, bloated rock establishment, punk has gotten mighty nostalgic in its old age. Keith Morris, the fiery, dreadlocked imp most identifiable as the frontman for SoCal's merry hardcore pranksters the Circle Jerks, might be the greatest offender. Not only does he continually bring back the Jerks every few years, this year he's performing with a reconstituted version of Black Flag—a band he was in for all of one admittedly awesome EP in the late '70s—and touring with OFF!, a new band that sounds like every old band he's ever been in. Featuring members of Burning Brides, Hot Snakes and Redd Kross, the pseudo-supergroup plays straight-up, clenched-fist, '80s-style hardcore, all agitated power chords and blink-and-miss-it song lengths, with 57-year-old Morris hollering about alienation and political oppression like he scribbled out the lyrics during his high-school history class. It works—often with face-breaking force—mostly because it's a hard formula to fuck up. Angst and aggression are ageless, and OFF! provides an outlet for rage that, unlike its members, will never get old.