7Seconds - Change in My Head (TRUST Edition) (2025)

It's difficult to overstate just how meaningful 7 Seconds was to punk kids of a certain generation and inclination. The band loomed large over the American underground punk scene of the early '80s, thanks to incessant touring, a string of records where the band shifted from strength to strength, and, perhaps most importantly, the particular blend of everyman accessibility, galvanizing earnestness, and hardcore bona fides that bandleader Kevin Seconds brought to the mix. There were many other punk bands who made suburban skaters feel like they too could strap on a guitar and stick it to the man, but 7 Seconds presented something of an elevated attack, rich with melodic instinct and creative ambition.

By the time 7 Seconds got around to recording new material in late 1985 to follow up the iconic Walk Together Rock Together EP, they had already burned like a supernova through the formality and strictures of "what a hardcore band was supposed to sound like." Thanks to the largely unimpeachable credibility amassed over the years, they were both ready and willing to explore new sonic territory. The resulting album—New Wind—was both revelatory and not uncontroversial, with a sound that harnessed the visceral energy of punk rock to power a clutch of highly melodic tunes that addressed issues both personal and political. To say that this was the album that planted the seed for the more directly punk-infused emo scenes that emerged less than a decade later is reductionist and somewhat unfair, but facts are facts: between New Wind and about a third of the output of 1985-1990 Dischord Records, a blueprint was provided for scores of acolytes to follow.

Appropriately enough, it was Ian MacKaye who was tapped to remix New Wind for this 2025 re-release, and his first order of business was to give the album the sonic heft it's always deserved. Hardcore albums of the era tended to never be sonic marvels, but to have 7 Seconds' intensity muffled by poor fidelity and thin reproduction always seemed the definition of a missed opportunity. MacKaye remedies that with a deft touch that makes the album sound great to modern ears without losing any of the ragged realism of its mid-'80s genesis.

In addition to the superb remix, this reimagined version of New Wind also features a substantially revised track listing. Exploding out of the gate with a burlier, new-look version of "New Wind," Change in My Head reveals a dynamism and breadth to 7 Seconds' then-transitional sound that wasn't all that apparent at the time. The track listing is also expanded: "Colour Blind Jam"—with its loose evocation of Sonic Youth at their most hip-hop-curious—was included on early CD reissues of the album; it is (thankfully?) not included here. Instead, there are two tracks from the same sessions—"Change In My Head" and "Compro"—that are much more stylistically aligned with where the band was at the time and also the direction they were moving toward.