**Volumes 1 & 2 of the recently reissued vinyl versions collected together on double CD** San Francisco's cherry-picking reissue label, Superior Viaduct, give new life to these crucial volumes of art-pop and pre-punk prototypes from Akron, Ohio's finest. 'Hardcore' documents the formative years, 1974-1977, of the brothers Mothersbaugh (Mark, Bob, and Jim) and Brothers Casale (Jerry and Bob) and their drummer Alan Myers (recently deceased, RIP), whose concept of DE-eVOlved blues is considered a pivotal notion in the history of rock music. It marks a point where rock and pop became self-aware of culture's back-cycling tendencies and consciously pedalled side-ways, stripping back the posturing and itching it up in line with po-mo sensibilities. The results, captured here, are equal parts primitive thump and jerky, angular synth and guitar agitation matched by lyrical themes touching on "post-McCarthy paranoia, middle-class ephemera, and DEVO's long-running topic of choice: sex, or lack thereof" and including some of pop music's most inventive, unique moments. We're talking the aut-right electrock of 'Jocko Homo' and 'Mechanical Man' - both included here in their earlier, arguably better versions, alongside the seductively eccentric disco euphemisms of 'Social Fools' and the wry blues of 'Auto Modown'. Visiting stirring instrumental synth music on 'Booji Boy's Funeral' and arriving at icky bubblegum pop on 'Goo Goo Itch', via the jagged discord of 'U Got Me Bugged' and the primordial fuzz-fest of 'Man From The Past'.
