What can you say about a band that has broken-up, reformed and changed styles more times than the fucking Bible has been rewritten? Suicidal Tendencies carved there niche in musical history with their 1983 eponymous debut - a tight 20-minute slab of SoCal hardcore which I still treasure to this day. Underproduced, underappreciated and underrated, Suicidal Tendencies broke up soon after Repo Man made "Institutionalized" a college radio hit only to reform in '87 as a relatively generic thrash band. Remember Join The Army? Probably the worst album ever released by Caroline/Suicidal Records, it was embarrassing back then trying to pretend the new ST was the old ST... and by the time the late 80's rolled around it was barely the same band, mainstay vocalist Mike Muir was the only holdover. OK, crossover thrash was the big thing at the time and ST grabbed hold to the bandwagon with their How Can I Laugh Tomorrow... and tried to suck up to their prog/thrash No Mercy incarnation with their ...Deja Vu release in '89. Yet I gotta give the Venice boys credit - 1990 was a perfect time to release what most feel is their strongest mainstream album: Lights... Camera... Revolution! "You Can't Bring Me Down" and "Send Me Your Money" were MTV staples (back when being an MTV staple actually meant something) and I think there were actually Grammy nominations for the album. LCR got the band a tour with Queensrÿche (I still got ticket stubs from that motherfucker!) and "Lovely" is easily the album's tightest track; admittedly while a bigger fan of their older stuff, I think the breaks and grooves (there's like 6 of them) were way ahead of what Anthrax or Faith No More were trying to do at the same time. At some point I grabbed the song's promo single (with bonus track!) and here it is. Since then, the history of ST has been annoying; an unforgivingly pathetic attempt to rekindle what started in '83 but can ya blame the guys? Reviews of their newer shit claimed fans "warmly welcomed" the new style.... really? Listening to "Suicidal Failure" has never been as cool as it was back in 8th grade. Good luck fellas.
Currently watching: The Devil
Currently listening to: The Mung The Splatter Sessions
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