Face Value “Rode Hard, Put Away Wet: Clevo HC ‘89 - ‘93” CD/DVD

This massive collection from Smog Veil Records has been in the works for an eternity, finally seeing the light of day just last month. "Rode Hard, Put Away Wet: Clevo HC '89—'93" is an almost complete discography for Face Value, which tends to be one of the lesser talked about of the significant Cleveland hardcore bands. Included are 1991's "The Price of Maturity" LP, the "Coming of Age" 7" (1990), four songs from their final full-length, "Kick it Over" (1993), and their first demo from 1989 (most of the songs from which went on to appear on various compilations). The only things missing are the "Loud" live 7" from 1991, and the other four songs from "Kick it Over", but that's fine with me because I've never been much of a fan of live recordings, and the longer songs/more rocked out direction of "Kick it Over" never really did much for me, to be honest.

If you've never heard Face Value, their style was not at all in the dark, metallic vein for which so many Cleveland bands are known. They basically cranked out angry, old school hardcore that was somehow able to avoid most of the generic "youth crew" trappings, not to mention the immediately recognizable vocals of frontman/legendary Cleveland icon Tony Erba. Even in their earliest days they had a good balance of tempos happening, so it's not just fast, monotonous power chords with no variation; and lots of slick basslines always tend to spice things up as well. Really, the more obvious shift they took on "Kick it Over" shouldn't have been an enormous surprise, as there are plenty of leads and blatant rock riffs scattered amidst the traditional hardcore and crunchy midpaced breaks of "The Price of Maturity" and (to a lesser degree) "Coming of Age".

In addition to the 31 career-spanning tracks of the CD, the DVD contains segments from a number of different live shows between 1990—1993, and there are actually a handful of unreleased songs included, which is a nice touch. Also cool are the galleries of photos, flyers, and other assorted artifacts included on the DVD as a bonus. The discs are housed in a six-panel digipack with a pretty old school looking layout. No lyrics are in the booklet, but there are a lot of liner notes from various individuals close to the band over the years—including members of Ringworm and Apartment 213, to name but a few. Here's a little taste of what the band had to offer:

Face Value "Men From the Boys"
Face Value "Nothing to Prove"

If for whatever reason you're not interested in the DVD, the entire audio portion of the release is available digitally for a very reasonable price, so... don't forget that's an option!

Get It

Smog Veil Records (CD/DVD)
Interpunk (CD/DVD)
Amazon.com (mp3)
iTunes (mp3)