Cro-Mags

Before the Cro-Mags appeared, no one had fused heavy metal with hardcore punk. Their 1986 debut, The Age of Quarrel, introduced hardcore metal and soon spawned numerous imitators such as Biohazard and Vision of Disorder. Despite repeated personnel changes and disputes over leadership and the band’s name, the Cro-Mags kept recording and performing in shifting configurations, exerting enormous influence on the hardcore community, particularly in New York. The Age of Quarrel remains their signature statement through its fusion of hardcore speed and metal guitar riffs, while 1989’s Best Wishes steered the sound deeper into thrash territory. After years of doubt about the group’s continuation, 2020’s In the Beginning and its accompanying EP returned them to a furious, aggressive stance that delivered a more powerful take on their 1980s material.

From the start, bassist and vocalist Harley Flanagan has led the Cro-Mags. In 1977, at age ten, he formed his first punk band while traveling in Europe. Back in New York City he played drums for the Stimulators, a local punk outfit that also performed frequently in Washington, D.C., alongside Bad Brains. During the early 1980s Flanagan assembled the first Cro-Mags lineups from various musicians, remaining the sole constant; he captured their emerging style on a four-song demo in 1983. By the mid-decade the best-known incarnation had solidified—Flanagan on bass, ex–Bad Brains roadie John Joseph on vocals, Parris Mayhew on guitar, and Mackie Jayson on drums—and the quartet quickly attracted a devoted audience at CBGB.

A 13-track demo circulated widely in the underground (later issued officially in 2000 as Before the Quarrel) and secured the Cro-Mags a contract with Profile’s Rock Hotel imprint, at which point second guitarist Doug Holland joined. Around the same period the musicians became closely tied to the Hare Krishna movement, much as Bad Brains had aligned with Rastafarianism. Riding the resulting buzz, the band released The Age of Quarrel in 1986. As thrash acts such as Slayer and Metallica gained traction, national tours supporting Motörhead and Megadeth broadened their reach, yet internal friction soon erupted and Joseph and Jayson departed after the album’s touring cycle; Jayson later appeared in the Bad Brains and the Fun Lovin’ Criminals.

Best Wishes finally arrived in 1989, with Flanagan taking lead vocals and Pete Hines handling drums. Mounting difficulties with the label prompted Mayhew’s exit, but Flanagan and Joseph revived the group in the early 1990s, issuing Alpha Omega in 1992 and Near Death Experience in 1993 on Century Media. Those recordings featured the returning Holland alongside newcomers Gabby Abularach on guitar and Dave di Censo on drums. Following the double-live set Hard Times in an Age of Quarrel the band dissolved once more.

In the late 1990s Flanagan and Mayhew relaunched the Cro-Mags for live work, recruiting ex–Suicidal Tendencies guitarist Rocky George and drummer Dave di Censo. That lineup delivered the 2000 album Revenge before fracturing again; a 2001 attempt by Flanagan and Joseph to restore the classic roster also collapsed. In 2008 Joseph and Jayson assembled another project that began touring under the Cro-Mags banner, sparking personal and legal clashes over naming rights, with both sides employing variants of the name and Flanagan issuing the 2016 solo album Cro-Mags. After an April 2019 lawsuit awarded Flanagan ownership of the name, his reconstituted lineup—Flanagan on bass and vocals, Rocky George and Gabby Abularach on guitars, and Gary “G-Man” Sullivan on drums—unveiled In the Beginning, the first official Cro-Mags studio album in twenty years, followed later that year by the 2020 EP.