Honor Role always impressed me even when I couldn't figure out what they were trying to do ("Rictus" at the end of side two, for instance), although I gotta admit that their first hardcore EP was one of the worst records ever. Other than that, though, their late-'80s output was amazing, with some of the most overtly head-knocking guitar work you'll ever bear witness to-- check out "Absolve" and "Following Footprints" here, if you need proof of that.
You could try to make the claim that a lot of what happened in Difficult Indie Rock in the '90s owed itself to bands like Honor Role, except that I'm pretty sure most of the prevalent beardo/noisecore people I ran into back then (for instance) weren't even aware of Honor Role, so that's not gonna float. If you've never checked them out before, though, I think you'll find that Honor Role are definitely one of those bands that will challenge your perspective about everything that followed after them, and I mean that in a good way.
Honor Role -
"Listening To Sally"
"Absolve"
"Following Footprints"
"Swing It"
"Salty Tears"
(these files are now listen-only)
