The Philadelphia punk/hardcore/Oi! band
2 Minutes Hate lasted about four years before breaking up, and left little in the way of a recorded legacy.
Strong & On (released on former singer Andy Thorp King's Thorp label) includes the entirety of the band's studio output; the liner notes offer frustratingly little information about when the recordings were made or which ones have been commercially released before, but it appears that the disc includes both demo material and sides from 7" singles. The program is evenly divided between songs that feature Thorp as frontman and those that feature vocalist
Jason Cox; since King was in the band as it ended, it seems safe to assume that the first six tracks on the program are from that period, and that the final six tracks are from the group's earlier days, though its sound is quite consistent throughout. The album title is apt: the average song length is just over two minutes, and if the songs are not exactly filled with hate, they are certainly wracked with anguish, anger, and a pronounced degree of eschatological dread. This is hardcore punk in the classic headlong style, with machine-gun drums and largely indecipherable vocals bouncing off of a buzz-saw guitar and bass. Highlight tracks include the title song, the musically complex and lyrically anguished "Fallguy," and a surprisingly long album-ender called "Stomp of Approval," which poses the musical question, "I need your help/Why aren't you here?" over a shifting foundation of punk and metal accompaniment. This is a band who didn't have time to achieve greatness, but deserved more attention than it got. ~ Rick Anderson