Formed from the wreckage of other bands (cough, Catharsis, cough -Ed.) that set out to rescue the world from Western civilization only to end in ashes and defeat, Requiem has refused to record anything until now lest they perpetuate the commodity-oriented stupor that mires the would-be revolutionary underground in verbose inactivity. Finally, they have composed a half hour of music they feel might be able to do more to break hearts and inspire insane acts of resistance than it does to promote consumption and spectatorship. In nine tracks that range from mournful, muted beauty to operatic hardcore punk to the apocalyptic marching drums of street rioting, they pit raw fury and yearning against everything ugly in a desperate bid to rescue punk rock (not to mention music and modern life in general) from its own inertia. If music can be no more powerful than the context in which it is made, then we are lucky these full-time revolutionaries and lunatics have taken time out of their demanding regimens—not to mention stayed out of prison long enough—to fashion for us this epic of tragedy and defiance.