I first heard of this LA punk band when I was running distro in the early 2000s. They had an EP out on The Legion (short-lived label that only released 3 titles), which I began stocking, and then they put out another release on the upcoming Clumsy Records (also home to Combat Junkies, The Stivs and a few others). I had the chance to catch them live at Cornerstone 2002, which was a fantastic show! In fact, that year was a great year for punk at the festival, as I also saw Huntingtons, The Remnants, One Bad Pig, World Against World, and Headnoise that year among others. But enough reminiscing!
What I liked most about The Discarded was how they stood out from most other Christian punk bands. Christian punk at the time was dominated by pop-punk on the one hand, or hardcore punk on the other. The very few old school punk bands that did exist tended to fit into traditional American punk sounds centered around New York City or Los Angeles. But while The Discarded were American (and ironically from LA), they sounded like straight up 1976 London punk, especially like that of the Sex Pistols or 999. Later material saw them moving in a direction that was still British-influenced, but paced at street punk levels akin to The Vibrators.
“Religious Lie” warns of the difficulty of striving to keep up a performance-based Christianity, centered on legalistic adherence to religious laws, and instead opts for freedom in Christ. Their stuff is hard to find these days, but they were a great punk band! Some members carried on in mainstream-oriented punk band The Scarred.
