America's Greatest Hits, the first full-length by Olympia hardcore act Gag, is a pitch-black album about cackling in the abyss, cracking jokes in the humorless confines of hardcore. They are deeply entrenched in the underground: The album is out on Iron Lung, the quietly reigning West Coast punk and hardcore label operated by a band of the same name; Iron Lung's drummer, Jensen Ward, accompanies members of Gag in White Wards. And Gag's clutch of tapes and EPs, which date back to 2012, demonstrate a rigorously fundamental understanding of hardcore: forbidding thickets of guitar feedback; dour, mid-tempo riffs evocative of dogged trudging and furrowed brows; and rhythmic motifs limited to lumbering backbeat and pugilistic punctuation.
That makes Gag at once highly traditional—wavering little from formal touchstones like, say, Poison Idea's original "Pure Hate"—and at odds with hardcore's prevailing inclinations today. There's none of the studied staccato blitzkrieg of Punch, no d-beat homage à la Ajax or Gas Rag. Rather, America's Greatest Hits is a sturdy and relatively unhurried exercise in stylized hostility: "Steel Forced Twin" is a strident salvo of floor-tom thud, while "Pretty Boy" is all showy strut and bratty leads. Trenchant and thuggish without relief, America's Greatest Hits is predictable but never rote; if contemporary hardcore is less in conversation with originators and more indentured to them, Gag threatens to depose its masters.
Indeed, the ghoulish jester adorning the cover of last year's Locker Room EP looks something like Gag's spiritual advisor. And America's Greatest Hits, like Gag's catalog at large, is distinguished by its humor. Historically, hardcore has prized clarity—rejecting irony and sarcasm in favor of a more imperative and sincere tone—whereas punk is more likely to traffic in farce and black humor. Gag, however, forces an impressive amount of sardonic punch lines, guttersnipe mockery, and macabre wit into its otherwise purist hardcore. In the squelched, scabrous vocals, quizzical references to shrimp, sunglasses, and Wal-Mart abound. "It's Just Me" begins, "There's no justice/ There's no justice—just me*,*" which illustrates how skillfully Gag uses the few syllables allotted each line: there's a simplistic pun, a cynical assertion, and even something of a political statement.
All throughout America's Greatest Hits, Gag fulfills the music's nearly monosyllabic requirement with a rare capacity for invention and play. But they aren't simply clever. They mix mastery and transgression. Perhaps Gag explains its perspective best: Consider one of its finest little maxims, from the 40 Oz. Rule '90 EP: "Ha ha ha/ Blah blah blah/ Either way you die." Like the very most resonant sentiments in hardcore, it's inarguable and essential. And America's Greatest Hits affirms that Gag guffaws in the face of death.
