Yesterday I mentioned this on Twitter, but sometimes 140 characters doesn’t always tell the story. After approximately 15 years of willful ignorance, I gave up my personal listening embargo to BAD RELIGION’s elusive/controversial 1983 release, Into the Unknown. For the longest time, I reasoned with myself that if the band (that I have admired so much) was so embarrassed or uninterested in even acknowledging its existence, then I should honor that the same.

From a practical standpoint, this was easy to do, as before the days of mp3 blogs or P2P sites, or what have you, finding a physical copy of the record was no easy task. But over the past couple of years, its presence online was a common taunt; you know you wanna listen… just click the damn Mediafire link you idiot. One of the rumors that I’ve read the most is that Brett Gurewitz buys up all of the copies of Into The Unknown that show up on eBay and destroys them. Could that be true? Could the musical hate run so deep?

And so I caved, clicked a link, and slotted it neatly into my Bad Religion iTunes playlist – this missing piece, now at home among classics (and a few regrets). The first thing that struck me was that despite its reputation as some kind of grand progressive rock opus, it really wasn’t all that different than How Could Hell Be Any Worse, or the subsequent ‘return to form’ release Back to the Known. If I had to sum it up in just a few words, it’s “slower, with more piano and guitar wankery.” I would still consider “Billy Gnosis,” and “Losing Generation” punk rock songs, despite other musical ingredients and songwriting design. Perhaps the biggest fault with it is that it captures virtually none of the rabid energy that fuels the band’s earliest recordings.

After a few on-repeat listens, I think I’ve had my fill. It wasn’t worth the 15 year abstention. I hope that one day Greg, Brett and company come around on keeping Into the Unknown out of sight (which really is ironic for a release with a song titled “Time and Disregard”). Give it a remastering and send it off as a digital download in iTunes, eMusic, etc. After all, it’s “Only Entertainment.”