Seize the Time

Album Review

Considering the many Filipino immigrants residing in the States, and the U.S.' long relationship with the islands, most Americans remain surprisingly ignorant about this former U.S. possession. Imelda Marcos and her shoes seem to have left the most long-lasting impression, while the U.S. overthrow of the country's 1898 Republican government and the subsequent bloody suppression of the Nationalist insurrection that spilt forth in its wake remains buried in the past. The fact that the U.S. have troops on the ground assisting the increasingly unpopular President Gloria Arroyo fight her myriad enemies (including Muslim nationalists, free-booting kidnap-happy, pseudo-Muslim extremists, rebellious army units, left-wing activists, union leaders, and a variety of other political opponents), also seems to have passed by most Americans. The country's economy struggles, with households dependent on remittances from family members working abroad.

No wonder Flatbush are p****d off. Led by the emigré Maniago brothers, the band vent their rage at the states of both their native land and their adopted home. From the howl of fury directed at the "Fascist Diktador" (drawing a straight line between Hitler's and Bush's policies), to the tale of torture that weaves through the screams of torment in "The Passion of Satan," Seize the Time! bursts with vitriol from the grooves. But the band aren't merely railing against the forces of darkness, they're determined to fight back. Grabbing an "AK-47 for Self Defense," the group intend to "Serve the People" by rallying them to the barricades and frontlines, and finally overthrow the "reactionaries" and "imperial pigs" responsible for their misery, finally handing "All Power to the People." No political polemics nor nuanced economic dissertations here, what Flatbush offer is explosive revolution, driven by centuries of violent oppression and ruthless exploitation; the match to light the long simmering fuse. Their music, as incendiary as their lyrics, whirls with fury, fire, and barely controlled chaos. This is the sound of the Parisian masses storming the Bastilles, the Russian mobs slaughtering the nobility, and every starving peasant who picked up a hoe and smashed it into the head of his greedy landowner. Not for the faint of heart nor the armchair radical, Flatbush use their music as a weapon, bashing down the old order with an aural assault of nuclear proportions.