RAC/Oi!

Anyone who thinks street rock’n’roll is merely a British cultural asset will get a full-throttle broadside from Down Under with “The First Assault.” White Noise from Fremantle, Western Australia, released a debut album on Rock-O-Rama Records in 1989 that crashed through the windshield of mediocrity like a cobblestone. There’s no lamentation here, there’s confrontation. No room for poetry – only harsh truths and the unvarnished confrontation with reality.

White Noise fuse Australian skinhead hardcore with British street sound. Tracks like “Clockwork Violence,” “Rebels,” and “We Don’t Need It” scream out their frustration into a world that sees the individual only as a consumer. This album is a musical expression of discontent in one piece: harsh, loud, honest. No pathos, just full throttle. It’s about identity, anger, and belonging – set to music with piercing guitars, pounding bass lines, driving drums, and a frontman who, in a Motörhead-like manner, manifests his lines rather than sings them.