You want proof? Ok, you got it. Presenting the 'Minor Threat Complete Discography' - a whistle stop 45 minute, 26 track testament to the power of music and individual thought. Put together from the band's entire back catalogue of DIY releases and assembled in mostly chronological order, everything from the 'First Demo Tape' through album 'Out Of Step' and posthumous release 'Salad Days' is included here, adding up to a musical arsenal that is hard to ignore. The all-out assault of jaw-droppingly fiery hardcore punk is the perfect foil for the acute socially conscious lyrics in which, for a band famed for being at the forefront of the clean living 'straight-edge' movement, the "stay punk, stay clean" ethos is more than apparent.

This is indeed righteous indignation youth style, but if the very idea of the DIY ethic, or of disenfranchised kids raging against the machine, seems a little clichéd in a contemporary context where cynical marketing men lurk in the shadows of every genuine musical movement ready to re-create second-hand scenes from which to milk every penny dry, then rest easy in the knowledge that even today this lot wouldn't be for buying. This is real, untainted, and perfect in every way. Bandleader and all round legend Ian Mackaye is the DIY ethic personified: Minor Threat are the definition of disenchantment as a vehicle for liberation over annihilation. Highlights such as, 'Screaming at a Wall' and 'Seeing Red' positively drip with a sentiment that threatens to emancipate itself from your stereo and sit you down for a bloody good lecture in social etiquette, while songs like 'Bottled Violence' and 'Straight Edge', for a moment, make a life without vice seem not only appealing but damn near mandatory. Elsewhere, 'Minor Threat' and 'Stepping Stone' are sheer punk-rock thrills that would surely have even the most uninitiated moshing, while later songs such as 'Salad Days' and 'Good Guys' show the depth of song writing ability Mackaye would later harness to effect in Fugazi.

Of course, as has historically been the case for many of the roster on the Dischord label that Mackaye spawned for the release of much of the D.C. punk output, the Minor Threat journey didn't last all that long, but it in many ways this serves to make the band's influence all the more impressive. As the D.C. scene reached the mid 1980s, and, with the break-up of Minor Threat, a natural fork in the road, many of the bands chose to walk a different path. Mackaye went on to first front Embrace before finding musical and personal solace in Fugazi, but what this discography documents so well and what makes it all so relevant is the notion that if your ethics are strong and your ideas ground in what is realistically achievable, then everything is possible, and if that seems clichéd in any way, with music like this, who cares?