In 1991 Wild Rags Records released the debut album from Los Angeles, California, grind/punk act Nausea.  I bought it on cassette and cd.  The album is essential grind and we all know that guitarist/singer, Oscar Garcia, had already sang on one of the greatest grindcore albums of all time, World Downfall, from Terrorizer, in 1989.  Crime Against Humanity is raw, unfiltered and just plain brutal grindcore with punk influences.  To the politically charges lyrics to the massive grooves and blasts this is still one of my favorite albums.  The band was young and on fire and it shows in their aggression and let’s face it, it’s sloppy at times.  Yes, on some of the blast beats drummer Eric Castro has some stick clicks, but I think this all adds to the brutality and fun this record provides, time and time again.  It’s under 23 minutes and if you have never heard them, well, combine early Napalm Death, D.R.I., Terrorizer and some Unseen Terror and mix that shit in a blender, mofos!

The Wild Rags original cd is bare bones with no lyrics and the production was rather low.  This album has been reissued a few times, but most recently at the end of 2013, Hammerheart Records, out of The Netherlands, decided to reissue the album, without any bonus material, on cd.  Not sure how much input the band had in this.  It would have been nice to have some band liner notes and the album is an 8 song affair, however, tracks 2 and 3, “Blind” and “Point of Discharge” were always merged into one song, listed as track 2.  The back of the cd, does not fix this issue.  While the booklet is expanded upon a bit with photos and lyrics, finally!- the lyrics to “Blind” were left out of the booklet, though.  No one could seem to tell me, beforehand, if this reissue featured the album remastered and there is no where in the booklet or the nice digi-pack to suggest this.

However, I am here to tell you, proudly, that yes it has been remastered.  I played this and the Wild Rags cd back to back and BOOM!!  The remastering on this is awesome.  The main difference is in the loudness scale.  The reissue is really loud and I am telling you I cranked this bad boy up in my truck with my sub woofer at max and the bass part to the opening of “Mind Dead” reverberated so loudly it collapsed the moon, which fell into the ocean drowning out millions of helpless fools.  So while not a perfect reissue with a few things missing, I am telling you the remastering more than makes up for it.  Very limited quantities, only 500 pressed, so they will be gone faster than you can say-Suffer-Pain, Lies-Vision.  ESSENTIAL!!

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