The first Punks

The review this week is a little shorter, but that is because the album is a little shorter and faster than normal. The Album I am reviewing is the punk essential “Suicidal Tendencies” by Suicidal Tendencies.

History

“Suicidal Tendencies” was first released in 1983 and became one of the top selling punk albums of all time and brought Suicidal Tendencies (the band) to the foreground of punk. The album features 12 fast, thrash-y songs written by the bands lead singer Mike Muir. Suicidal Tendencies is often considered the first Thrash Metal album and one of the first Punk bands. The album influenced the sound of many of the large set metal bands, including Metallica, Megadeath, Slayer, and Anthrax. “Suicidal Tendencies” set the stage for what was to come in music in the next decade.

Review

I’m not a huge fan of punk, but I can really appreciate this album and what it did for music at the time. All of the songs are face meltingly fast and have classic half yelling punk lyrics. All of the songs feel familiar, despite me not ever hearing many of them before and I think this is because many bands that I listen to take a lot of influence from it, specifically Anthrax. I love the dirty grungy sound of the guitar. My only complain with the album is that all of the songs sound a little too similar which leaves me feeling a little bored after a couple of songs.

Best song

The best song on “Suicidal Tendencies” is the star track of the album “subliminal”. The song opens with a heavily distorted guitar riff, and I can see that this riff inspired some modern artists such as The White Stripes. I love it’s slower opening with the drums crashing down loud and Mike Muir’s non screaming lyrics, which is very rare on this album. Right after the first verse/intro, the song goes quite and all that can be heard is a heavy bass line that almost sounds like an engine starting up, which is exactly what the song does right after the bass line. The whole band comes flying in at incredible speed and the lyrics become screaming once again. If you listen closely at the beginning of the song, you can hear a backwards tale being played and it makes me wonder what it says and if there are any other subliminal messages in this song.