Description
Sin Disease is the first full-length album by the American cutting-edge punk rockers Scaterd Few, released on Alarma Records in 1990. The album was recorded by Gene Eugene of Adam Again fame during February and March 1990 with Terry Taylor of Daniel Amos fame producing. (Taylor also did produce the band’s first recording, an EP recorded in June of 1983.)
Featuring guitarists Greg Lawless and Greg Flesch of Adam Again and Daniel Amos, respectively. According to All Music Guide: “Merciless, brutal, neurotic, Tourettic, and consistently stunning, Scaterd Few’s debut didn’t push the boundaries of rock – it annihilated them. Allan Aguirre’s vocal delivery was chilling: a wild, unconstrained howl that went from gothic moan to banshee yelp within the space of a single lyric. He sings like a man on fire, wild-eyed and crazy, yelping out each dire prophecy as if every word might be his last. The band’s music is equally urgent. Scaterd Few summoned a mad-scientist hybrid of dub, reggae, post-punk, and heavy metal that outshone even visionary avatars like the Pop Group.” In the words of Cross Rhythms Magazine: “This exciting set is never less than exciting and will keep this listener returning to it long after many safer musical offerings have been forgotten.”
Scaterd Few went on to release Out of the Attic in 1991 on cassette only (though re-issued on CD in 1994), a co-op between frontman Allan Aguirre (a.k.a. Rämald Domkus) and Flying Tart records. When the band parted ways in early 1996, Aguirre immediately started working on new material and formed a new band as well, Spy Glass Blue (a band described as “Brit pop – edgy new wave – and post punk psychedelic”).
Christian music has come a long ways, but it wasn’t too long ago that it was as derivative as you could possibly imagine. There was a time when I was incredibly skeptical of Christian music, and refused to use any adjectives like “groundbreaking” when describing it. That’s why Sin Disease, the debut from Sacterd-Few is such an incredible album.
Seamlessly melding punk, speed metal, funk, reggae, and goth into a deliriously intense sound all their own, Scaterd-Few was like a shot of adrenaline right to the heart. But the real treat was Ramald Domkus (now known as Allan Aguirre) and his Perry Farrel/Andrew Eldritch vocals. Wailing like a banshee, or stooping to a low growl, his vocal style is definitely unique and bizarre.
And rarely have I heard lyrics so blunt, yet so poignant and sublime as on this album. Domkus pulled no punches, and wasn’t afraid to confront social issues or his own spirituality with a refreshing openness.
Whether proudly wailing “I’d rather die than blame it on my God,” decrying racial and gang tension (“Unified we might persuade our local terrorist blackened regime/ Heed the cry of a scaterd few/ Like the brothers on the Berlin wall/ These walls need knocking too”), or voicing the energy of youth everywhere (“Take heed to my reproof/ Don’t reject me cause I’m young/ We’re here for Yawheh’s glory and to magnify His son”), rarely has any band released anything this deep and provoking in an album that just clocks under 40 minutes.
All in all, a real gem that hasn’t lost it’s energy after almost a decade, and whose impact will probably never fully be known. [Jason Morehead, Opus, 2005]
> Apple Music (https://music.apple.com/us/album/sin-disease/426976651)
CD tracklist:
01. Kill The Sarx – 1:26
02. While Reprobate – 1:41
03. Beggar – 2:22
04. Lights Out – 2:51
05. Later (LA 1989) – 3:37
06. Groovey – 2:56
07. Glass God (No Freedom In Basing) – 2:08
08. As The Story Grows – 1:28
09. U – 1:53
10. A Freedom Cry – 2:30
11. Scapegoat – 1:17
12. Wonder Why – 1:36
13. DITC – 1:09
14. Self – 1:13
15. Look Into My Side – 4:09
16. Kill The Sarx II (Apocalypse) – 7:05
Note: Simultaneously released on cassette and CD by Alarma Records. Remastered and released on 12-inch vinyl record in a high quality gatefold jacket by Burnt Toast Vinyl in July 2015. Burnt Toast Vinyl as well released an e-book by lead vocalist Allan Aguirre titled As the Story Grows…A lyrical study and scriptural commentary on Sin Disease. Remastered by J. Powell at Steinhaus and re-issued as a GoldMax Gold Disc by Retroactive Records in 2023.
Album Liner Notes
I first met Ramald Domkus and his brother Omar in March of 1983. Ramald had just recently arrived back in the states after doing extensive missionary work in central and South America. While living in Guatemala he’d told me he’d worn out his recording of Shotgun Angel through repeated listenings. Of course I was flattered. Ramald handed me a cheap cassette tape and told me it was a demo of his band ‘scaterd-few’ – would I listen to it and consider producing a record for them? I said I would, slipped it into the devil’s triangle of my coat picket, and we went on our seperate ways. Naturally I forgot about the tape until much later. I’m a tad skeptical about all such tapes, but I decided to give it my customary once-over. I had gathered from Ramald’s appearance that I wouldn’t be hearing any Sandi Patti cover tunes. What I did hear was raw and sloppy, unique, inspired, and utterly exhilarating. It was also (in the vernacular of the record company marketers) “unshoppable.” I took the job.
The ‘scaterd-few’ E.P. was recorded in June of 1983 and for a while it circulated around Christian record companies. We soon learned that as far as distribution was concerned, no one wanted to touch it. (I wish Frontline Records had been around in those days – the E.P. would have most certainly seen the light of day). I can’t say I was surprised by the record exec’s laissez faire attitudes. After all, they were listening to dangerous non-ma-and-pop-Christian-bookstore music – it’s lyrical themes were just too intensely real. This wasn’t some white bread middle class band singing about “the streets” while living in insulated suburban track homes. They didn’t wear pre-fab-off-the-rack “punk” clothes from Sears either. Ma and Pa didn’t have the record, but the L.A. club underground did. The band and it’s E.P. were causing a healthy stir among those who were “in the know”, and even to this day ‘scaterd-few’ have been a buzz in the wire of Contemporary Christian music’s own thriving underground.
Now, almost seven years later, the band is back and once again I’ve had the pleasure of producing the latest from one of the truly great bands around. What will probably strike the listener immediately is the genuiness of Sin Disease. The band still calls the mean streets of L.A. it’s home, and they write not about speculative or conjectural events, but about what they know – the stuff of real life. The few’s themes are drugs, gangs, sex, sin, rock n’ roll and the great “through it all” – the sacing grace of Jesus Christ. When Ramald cries out in the haunting “Lights Out” –
“Please stop, William!
The wrong assassination”he truly does “know whereof he speaks”. One hears the utter pain and dispair in that amazing voice, because the anguish is not unconnected to the event. A close friend of Ramald’s, just a kid really, was indeed gunned down by gang members in 1989 (“gang bang” is the chilling euphamism used to describe such an event)
“No, I didn’t steal anything”
“No, I didn’t steal anything”Listen again to that lucid chameleon voice conjuring up the smoggy hot drudgery of L.A. street hassle. There’s more angst here in these two lines than you’ll find in an entire Club 88 all night battle of the bands.
Is the Christian community ready for ‘scaterd-few’? I certainly hope so. How many truly great bands can we with pride claim as our own? To put the icing on the cake, the live show is guaranteed to peel your grapes. The band won’t be without controversy – you can bet your bible belt on that – but these guys are talking to kids no one else is talking to. “S.f.” are almost too good to be true – a vibrant, soul altering, no compromise, rubber meets the road street ministry, and the kind of original show stopping music that will win respect across the Board – “Christian” and “Secular.”
It has been seven years since the band’s first E.P. met with very mild success, but I believe ‘scaterd-few’s’ time has come. (As of this writing, my own «Hide the beer the Pastor’s here» is #4 on the Christian rock charts. Maybe CCM isn’t dead after all, and bands like ‘scaterd-few’ may actually survive). The Few’ certainly won’t be everyone’s cup of molten lava, but give this fiery record a spin and see if it doesn’t put hair on your chest. For my money this may be one of the best of what could be a very interesting year.
– Terry Taylor, West Coast, April 1990
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