Matt Broadus

This album is a masterpiece...

Basically flawless, brilliantly structured mini-songs...

The only occasional complaint is the lyrics try just a bit too hard to be 'intelligent' (in contrast to the Circle Jerks, which tried too hard to be dumb?)
but this is a minor complaint, and most of the time, the lyrics on this album really *are* intelligent.

Morris was always a master of economy within lyric and song writing, as attested by the first black flag e.p., which, like Wasted Years, was so great because of how it utilized space, seeming to cram so many ideas both lyrical and musical, into such short track durations (but never feeling *crammed* or crowded). Nervous Breakdown's songs accomplished just as much, within a minute and a half, as most of pop music accomplished in five.

Wasted Years takes Morris' mastery of such economy to a new dimension. The song lengths are just as brief, but the lyrical content has sharpened with Morris' age.