Quite an assembly of talent is cured together on this well intended benefit to what has become known as The West Memphis 3 - three wrongly accused individuals and their ongoing trials and tribulations based on a seemingly misguided order of justice.

A wide array of bands/artists appear by way of making a personal statement against the cruel and not so unusual attempt at corporal punishment of three youths wrongly accused of murder simply because of public misconceptions housed in biased and pitifully outdated ways of thinking.

Before I make this into my own personal forum of outrage and disgust, (and it's gotta happen, it's too late now) I do have an obligation to examine the music found on here but the overall picture is extremely hard to ignore…

I can't believe what I'm reading!

Can you imagine in this day and age to still be judged on…

I mean as if ethnic background wasn't bad enough, now this goes completely away from the bounds of sanity-the music you listen to… the colors you wear… the literature you read?

This is truly a remarkably sick society we live in… we still live in!

Sure, stereotypical behavior fucks it up for everyone, that's a given. But in this case, guilty beyond a reasonable doubt has yet to be established and the three of them are being hung, drawn and quartered because they fashion an ideology that apparently goes so far against the grace of God so as to be nothing less than an extension of the Devil!

And the hypocrisy all begins in this apparently little small rural setting somewhere in Arkansas and it's like a fucking Mayberry city limits trip through Hell!

And this is no small matter… at all!

We've got the full gamut of performers here making their statements and its one time where all musical classification can be dropped at once in favor of getting the message across.

Steve Earle… don't know him, but his song "The Truth" and its C&W slant opens the door.

Rocket From the Crypt does one of the best songs I've ever heard from them in "Wrong and Important," and with a punk-like ferocity, not only is a complete antithesis to the opening track, it doesn't even matter.

The likes of L7 make an appearance…

Supersuckers, and their not so funny anymore, but adopting a serious tone with "Heavy Heart."

Tom Waits and his "Rains on Me," on any other day unbearable to listen to but here and now, it fits in the perfect context.

Do you see the significance building in each successive title?

These are proven performers who thought this issue was important enough to write their own music based on this mock trial-and this is our chance to get involved!

It's about the music but more importantly it's about the message-yes, there's some great new stuff on here and it's pretty wild to hear Kelley Deal sing "Fucking Hostile…" or Zeke, Californian heavy punk rockers doing Maiden's "Wrathchild," but I'll tell you what… anyone who grew up in the '80s and laughed about the whole bullshit with the PMRC and thought it was a long since dead and buried issue that served its purpose and moved on… Well now it's not so funny anymore.

Because this takes that morally unfounded principle and magnifies it to the point where you and me could be subject to persecution simply for listening to our music of choice… or wearing clothing that doesn't fit the prescribed notion of what murderers, rapists and degenerates are supposed to wear!

Son of a bitch!

I don't know the whole story behind this but the main things that anyone reading this needs to be aware of is that hung juries do exist and these three kids who've been locked up for better than seven years now have never been proven guilty of anything!

But they look the part so they must be guilty!

And any one of them could've been you or me or anyone that we know… could even be your own kids someday!

So go out and buy this disc for the music because odds are no matter what your tastes, there's gonna be at least half an album's worth of material you'll find interesting enough but more importantly, get involved in the cause…

It's horrifying to think that we as a race aren't above this kind of nonsense… or we as a country, the superior nation we like to fancy ourselves isn't beyond this sort of brigand justice!

Here's your wake up call!

We're apparently not. This doesn't have to involve you or someone you know personally-but it just might, someday, you never know. Look at it this way. Can you imagine being on the receiving end of such a prejudice so as to not even be allowed enough of an opportunity to present your own defense!

It's indefensible!

And it happens… here's living proof, and it pisses me right off-talk about human rights!

Well… Yes, someone was murdered and it certainly was a shame but it's even more shameful to wrongly accuse and then sentence someone, or a group, because they "look" the part… think about it!

This isn't the goddamned Middle Ages and some twisted witch-hunt here is it?

So get up and make your own statement against this shit and as a fantastic fringe benefit, get turned on to some excellent new music by some of the greatest artists of our time…

Hell, even Killing Joke got back together for this… Killing Joke!

That about sums up it all up now doesn't it…

Released by Koch Records

Review by Vinnie Apicella [va85@columbia.edu]