The Brigade “The Dividing Line” 1986. Better Youth Organization/BYO Records. Just a bit over a week ago I finally got to see Youth Brigade perform at the Punk Rock Bowling music fest in Las Vegas; The Brigade was the sort-of side project of brothers Shawn (vocals, guitars) and Mark Stern (drums) while their other, younger brother Adam Stern went to art school. At the Vegas show Shawn and Adam were on stage but Mark was not: Shawn explained that he was having a baby (I assume that his partner was having the baby but whatever). No matter – I had waited over 35 years to see one of my favorite punk bands from the 80′s: their album Sound and Fury was always on heavy rotation back in the day. My friends gave me this copy of The Dividing Line for my birthday in the summer of ‘86. At the time I was underwhelmed as it lacked the hard punch of Sound and Fury; it has a massive mid-80′s new wave BIG production sound – “I Scream,” “The Dividing Line” and the anthemic “The Last Frontier” could have been on INXS’ Listen Like Thieves or U2′s The Unforgettable Fire). The track “It’s a Wonderful Life” includes violin and acoustic guitar and “The Dividing Line” has some world-music flavor and horns (clearly the Stern brothers had a strong interest in exploring these generally non-punk sounds further as Mark, Adam and yet another Stern brother, Jamie, helped form the swing band Royal Crown Revue).  But I’ve softened over the years and actually like most of the record (I’m not sure the band does, however – Shawn briefly mentioned The Brigade iteration of the band at the show in not a particularly favorable light). However, I still don’t care for some of the silliness that first appeared on Sound and Fury’s song “Jump Back” and continued on The Dividing Line’s “The Story (Part 1)” (though I think that “The Story (Part 1)” was probably written pre-The Brigade as all four Stern brothers have writing credit for the track…it certainly sounds like they wrote it when they were very very young). And “The Hardest Part” is super-dated and cringe-worthy (I don’t recommend clicking the link to listen).

Here’s a photo from their September 25, 2021 concert in Las Vegas