Following on from the frenetic heights of their debut album,
Discharge's follow-up set was almost inevitably doomed to disappoint, not because there was anything wrong with it, but simply because there was no way anybody could recapture the heights of
Why. That said, anybody who places Oi! circa 1982 beneath the microscope will still be hard-pressed to name a more crucial noise than that being kicked out by the Birmingham quartet , and the 14 tracks that made up the original album include several all-time
Discharge classics. As per usual with Captain Oi! reissues, the bonus tracks complete the picture of the band's year, opening with the three-song
Never Again EP, then powering through the successive 45s "Dooms Day" and, from 1983, "Warning -- HM Government: Warning." Excellent packaging and liner notes wrap up the reissue, while the whole thing paves the way for the third and final original
Discharge album, the half live
Never Again. [Released in 1982,
Hear Nothing was reissued by Castle in 2003, and again in 2007 by Captain Oi!] ~ Dave Thompson