This is a direct, sincere, and often discomforting expression of the breadth of human emotion and dispositions, profoundly resonant in its imperfections. Although the actual significance of this album found its outlet in the garish and maligned groove/funk/nu unholy trinity of fiscally motivated crassness, the line that Suicidal Tendencies managed to walk between pop, punk, and metal has much to teach us today. But on ‘Suicidal Tendencies’, the drive to work in playful musical flourishes, to supplement the relentless ambiguity of atonal power chord barrages with catchy pop riffs and unexpected rhythmic breakdowns, all make this album a worthy blueprint that resonated down the generations, a schematic still revisited to this day. Their willingness to dilute hardcore punk’s deliberately self-limiting quest to launch blunt sonic projectiles at a society choking on its own nihilism with playful pop sensibilities would ultimately be their downfall. There’s no denying its abrasion, but the underlying messages of political disillusionment, mental health crises, the sense of betrayal at the fact that 1980s America was the best the previous generation could offer the world, all find themselves siphoned through this unmistakable pressure valve of desperation. Others have tried to imitate this style, but there’s a rawness to this performance that is difficult to replicate. And of course there’s Mike Muir vocals, which switch from full throated shouting (‘I shot Reagan’) to passionate spoken word (‘Institutionalized’) to moments of desperately out of tune singing (‘Subliminal’). There’s the tight rhythmic underpinning, with drums able to switch from proto blast-beats to rock solid grooves without (literally) missing a beat. There’s obvious talent behind the guitar leads which rival many contemporary metal bands for their virtuosity. This is also demonstrative of the musicianship on display here. Many of the songs drop into a groove or swing breakdown, supplementing the intensity with bluesy whimsy and humour, tempering the emotional barrage of the lyrics. But Suicidal Tendencies are not afraid to indulge their poppy side, working to fully integrate this into the thrash elements, to the point where they present as the most natural thing in the world. There’s plenty of high-speed thrash onslaughts, replete with dirt simple atonal riffing, air-raid siren like high-end fretboard murder, and stream-of-conscience lyrics belted forth quicker than conscious absorption will allow. The music displays a greater scope of influences and emotive variety than their contemporaries. There is naivety to the execution here that stands in stark contrast to the slick alt metal of the following decade. It’s there in the artist’s name after all. I’d hesitate to call this a precursor to metal’s move toward emotional sincerity that gained a foothold in the late 90s, for the simple reason that ‘Suicidal Tendencies’ the album is such a sloppy, honest, urgent articulation of young disaffection that grew out of capitalism’s final form under Reagan. What concerns us here is the overt vulnerability couched within music of nihilism and aggression that just screams Reagan era discontent. We’ll omit the commercial direction that Suicidal Tendencies took in later years for the sake of brevity. in the states and The Exploited and Discharge in the UK. With the release of their self-titled debut in 1983 they were at the forefront of punk’s burgeoning expansion into sonic abrasion and metallic leanings, along with D.R.I. Suicidal Tendencies are something of an enigma. The more heavy metal delved into occult and fantastical realms, the more thrash (and later grindcore) resisted, grounding the music in themes pertinent to the everyday experiences of those living through the last decade of Cold War. The colliding styles and traditions that exploded when metal met punk – leading to the bluntly direct “crossover” genre tag – gave rise to new battle grounds on both a sonic and conceptual front. The more abstract and removed modern metal becomes from our plastic lives, the more we will scour the 80s – the throbbing, cosmic womb of metal’s bid for cultural hegemony – for clues and signs as to our future. Whether you view this as a surreptitious way for punk to sneak its demands for a better world into the complex sonic architecture of metal, or as metal welcoming the energy and grounded realism of punk with open arms will really depend on which artist you interrogate. Since its inception, thrash has always posed as the social conscience of metal.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |