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Al Barile, who played guitar in the influential Boston hardcore band SS Decontrol — a linchpin of the drink-and-drug-shunning straight-edge scene of the early 1980s that also encompassed Washington’s Minor Threat — died Sunday at Boston’s Brigham and Women’s Hospital.

With songs that averaged about a minute in length, SS Decontrol — Society System Decontrol for long, SSD for short — railed furiously against what the members saw as the hypocrisy and the oppressive tendencies of government, the police and organized religion on albums such as 1982’s “The Kids Will Have Their Say,” which bore a cover photo depicting a group of young people storming the steps of the Massachusetts State House.

“In the Shadow of Horror, SS Guardians Relax and Frolic,” the New York Times print headline, starkly captures the dichotomy that made these photos so gripping and disturbing.

What exactly did these frolicking SS officers and support staff understand about their work?

Loyalty was prized over merit by the Nazis, and these photos are what Gronich calls “the selfies of an SS officer.”