Revisionist histories are occasionally the most entertaining kind of histories. Screw the facts. Let’s change the perception of the past.

That obviously wasn’t the intent for the P.E.A.C.E./War compilation, initially issued in 1984 and rereleased in 1997. The thing is, though, that the difference between the first and second versions of the album find a weird array of bands sitting next to each other. Everyone knows Articles of Faith and some eighties hardcore fanatics are familiar with O.D.F.X. – so it makes sense that the Chicago based band and those Clevelanders/Akroners were on the same original disc. The reissue, however, tosses on Anti Flag doing a song off its first album, which was released in 1996. That’s just a weird grouping of bands.

As evidenced by its title, the disc focuses on politically minded groups, who were under then impression that saying something was tantamount to doing something. So, with that piece of the pie in place, the second track listing makes a bit more sense. But still, the Butthole Surfers and Cause for Alarm on the same disc?

Either way, that Cause for Alarm track – “Time Will Tell” – is almost enough to reinvigorate interest in Victory Records. Not quite, though. The song still sports a tempo that doesn’t ape metal along with vocals that come closer to punky stylings than straight edged warbling. It doesn’t even matter that the drum roll, central to launching the second half of the song is pretty inept. It’s all emotive stuff. And for whatever reason, Victory and its bands later on seemed to skirt music like this. Bummer.

The aforementioned O.D.F.X. turn in a twenty second blast of anti-nuclear tension on unassuming listeners. Whether or not the band intended to write songs that were antithetical to the length of the nuclear scare itself can’t really be discerned. But its an interesting thought.

With the compilation being reissued, though, it would stand to reason that either the songs here were indispensible, not in print elsewhere or sported some other important aspect. That’s not the case, for the most part. Some of the obscured bands here might not have issued anything else, but their performances here could be the reason why. Yeah, the Dicks crop up – another odd inclusion.

Since there wasn’t then nor is there now a well defined hardcore sound, though, P.E.A.C.E./War serves more as a primer to aggressive musics than it does a political statement.