Spin (5/01, p.110) - Ranked #33 in Spin's "50 Most Essential Punk Records" - "...Modernized hardcore overnight....Earnestly explosive."
Alternative Press (3/02, p.96) - Included in AP's "Essential Punk Influences '02 Style" - "...This is the album that first showed a million lesser-known bands it was possible to make it on your own terms..."
New York Times (Publisher) (3/7/91) - "Fugazi has broken free of hard-core's conventions...the music is all muscle and bone; songs riff, blare, riff, pause and crunch, then stop dead, as terse and Apollonian as a string quartet."
13 SONGS combines the eponymous EP and the MARGIN WALKER mini-LP on one CD.
Combining the band's first two EPs, Fugazi's 13 SONGS is nothing less than a landmark hardcore album. From the unmistakable opening bass line of "Waiting Room" to the cathartic finale of "Promises," the record is DIY post-punk at its finest. And though the quartet would become known for its anti-corporate/consumerism stance, 13 SONGS is all about unapologetically intense music.
Founded by ex-Minor Threat and Embrace frontman Ian MacKaye, Joe Lally, Guy Picciotto and Brendan Canty (the latter two from Rites of Spring), Fugazi had a remarkably fully formed sound on this set of songs, with alternately fierce and chiming guitars exploding over fluid bass grooves and tight, propulsive rhythms. Already a revered figure on the Washington D.C. hardcore scene at the time of this 1989 release, MacKaye opted to share lyric, vocal, and guitar duties with Picciotto, giving the group an even greater sense of dynamics. "Bad Mouth" boasts an almost ska-like vibe, and "Margin Walker" is angular aggro-rock, while "Provisional" carries elements of atmospheric pop. True, the roots of emo-rock are present, but as Fugazi proves here, they are a band whose music transcends labels.
