Roadrunner Classix Revisited: Gang Green

For better than two decades – give or take a year here and there – Boston hardcore heroes Gang Green have pummeled suspecting audiences with the band’s own unique, over-the-top mind-muck consisting of equal parts fast-n-furious punk rock and clashing heavy metal bluster. Unlike the many of the band’s West Coast contemporaries at the time, weak sisters that were more concerned with politics and the environment, or else obsessed with death and destruction, our Beantown boys were just another bunch of lugnuts in love with sex and beer and skateboarding, Gang Green helping lay the foundation for the skatepunk culture that would follow.

Originally formed by vocalist/guitarist Chris Doherty in 1982, the band’s revolving-door line-up and Doherty’s scattergun approach to other projects (he played in three other bands circa 1982-85) resulted in Gang Green recording only a handful of songs for a compilation album, This Is Boston Not L.A. Doherty later revived the Gang Green name with a new band in 1985, recording a couple of EPs and the band’s full-length debut, Another Wasted Night, for Seattle’s Taang! Records label. The album included an energetic cover of ‘Til Tuesday’s hit song “Voices Carry” that would become a fan favorite and a regular part of Gang Green’s live show for years.

It wasn’t until the Gang Green line-up gelled around Doherty, drummer Brian Betzger, guitarist Fritz Erickson and bassist Joe Gittleman that the band found its true voice. This is the foursome that recorded the band’s legendary 1987 sophomore album, You Got It, as well as its equally-acclaimed follow-up, Older…Budweiser in 1989. Gittleman would later leave the band, joining the Mighty, Mighty Bosstones just in time for that band’s brief mid-90s shot at fame, while Gang Green would record the 1990 live set Can’t Live Without It, before being cut by Roadrunner and breaking up (again). Doherty and Betzger would take another shot at the brass ring with their underrated and sadly-overlooked punk-pop band Klover, but would go on to form yet another version of Gang Green in 1997 to record the band’s fourth studio album, Another Case Of Brewtality.

Released by metal label Roadrunner’s sister imprint Emergo Records in 1987, You Got It is, perhaps, the best representation of Gang Green’s dynamic, electric live sound that’s ever been captured in the studio. As much a lesson in speed-metal pyrotechnics as it is raging wildfire punk, the band kicks the pedal through the floorboard with the album’s very first track, “Haunted House,” a sub-two-minute raver with blistering guitar and incendiary drumbeats. Doherty’s voice is strained to the point of breaking, as notes fly out of your speaker like a tornado dissecting a trailer park. From this point, You Got It just gets even more dangerous and out-of-control….

“We’ll Give It To You” begins with a guitar intro that might sound like any ‘70s-era classic rock band if not for the intensity afforded the fretwork, the skatepunk anthem suddenly leaping headfirst into a blur of Motorhead-styled metallic riffs and furious rhythms. A blizzard of ringing chords kicks you in the crux of yer trousers, then “Sheetrock” spirals rapidly into a menacing bludgeon, fitting the listener for a pair o’ concrete galoshes before breaking into a fine extended showcase for Doherty’s manic six-string work. The muscular “Ballerina Massacre” thunders like a quartet of apocalyptic horsemen; Betzger’s drumwork is simply breathtaking, kind of like being smothered by a lead pillow (sans cotton cover), while Doherty and/or Erickson throw a little thrash-n-bash fretwork into the cement mixer along with the listeners’ battered bodies.

There are lots of other fine psychotic breakdowns to be found on You Got It, from the almost-oi Brit-styled ear-thuggery of “Born To Rock” and the 90mph hardcore flash of “Another Bomb” to the fiery City-Of-Angel-inspired diabolism of “Party With The Devil” or the thinly-veiled rivethead evil of “Sick Sex Six.” Throw this tasty little sucker into your CD player, hit ‘shuffle’ and then ‘repeat’ and prepare to be assaulted by a couple hours of high-octane, old school wall-o-sonic-fury hardcore punk, the sensation not unlike running headfirst and banging yer skull against a breeko-block wall a time or three. The game’s over when either the CD stops playing or you slump to the floor, unconscious. DO NOT play more than once a day or you’ll only be fit for a job in the Oval Office, or fitted for a straitjacket (or both)!

Lovingly remastered with an ear towards both the sonic highs and the lows, You Got It is one of MVD Audio’s Roadrunner Classix reissue series CDs, released on a shiny gold disc in a numbered limited edition of 2,000 copies. You Got It is a good choice for the deluxe treatment, arguably representing Gang Green’s best album and, from a historical perspective, providing an important bridge between punk and heavy metal that would become more important as ‘90s alt-rock crashed-and-burned at the end of the decade. Besides, You Got It is more fun than chugging a case of Budweiser and riding your board on that razor-thin rail between heaven and hell, or maybe putting frogs down yer lil’ brother’s boxers…your choice, meathead. (MVD Audio)

(Click on the CD cover to buy You Got It from Amazon.com)

Roadrunner Classix Revisited: Realm

From jump street, Realm’s 1988 debut album Endless War comes galloping out of your speakers like the Four Horsemen of some alternative, leather-clad Apocalypse, grabbing your ears and smacking your pointy lil’ head against the pavement until you give up your lunch money. That’s lofty praise, to be sure, but from the opening chords of the album’s title track ‘til the final musical explosion that Realm titled “Poisoned Minds,” Endless War is a high-octane kick-in-the-groin with the dreaded steel-toed work boot (size 12, I think). Part of the MVD Audio reissue series of classic Roadrunner Records titles from the golden age of heavy metal, Endless Realm kicks serious ass in every way that you could imagine (967 if you’re actually counting).

Roaring out of the unlikely environs of Massachusetts, Wisconsin Realm took the early-80s thrash-metal revolution that had already infected the West Coast seriously. More so, these jugheads took it PERSONALLY as well, figuring, I guess, that they could tear down buildings and deflower virginal young maidens as well as Hetfield, Mustaine or the assorted (sordid?) mopes from Testament, or maybe even better. Fey Cali metalheads aside, Realm was formed in 1985 by vocalist Mark Antoni, guitarists Takis Kinis and Paul Laganowski, bassist Steve Post and drummer Mike Olson. After circulating a couple of demo tapes around the growing metal tape-trading underground, and selling a few thousand copies out of their collective car trunks and by mail order (back in the pre-web daze), Realm signed to the young Roadrunner Records label in 1988.

With Endless War, the Realm guys figured that they had built a better metal mousetrap, and I’d have to agree with them (and not only ‘cause they’re currently holding my dog Mugsy hostage…you’ll be home soon boy, I promise!). In Mark Antoni, Realm had an unusually talented vocalist (for a thrash band, that is), an old-school warbler that soared rather than growled, hitting the notes high and low like Dickinson from Iron Maiden or Savatage’s Jon Oliva. Antoni struts and swaggers through the mix like some sort of spotlight-clad Greek deity while the rest of the band knocks down the riffs and rhythms with reckless glee.

Here’s the other unusual thing about Realm – even a casual listen to Endless War displays technical chops more akin to contemporary prog-metal outfits than twenty-year-old thrash-metal bands. The guys in Realm, particularly guitarists Laganowski and Kinis, bring a big dose of melodic technicality to the music, refusing to trade skills for power and vice versa. There are a lot of progressive elements in Realm’s sound, from the intricate guitar interplay to the careful rhythmic construction. Drummer Olson can blister the skins with the best of ‘em, but he can also follow Post’s rhythmic lead and deliver subtle flourishes that fill out the band’s sound nicely.

It all comes down to the songs though, don’t it, which in the case of Realm’s Endless War, are a breathless mix of traditional metal construct, futuristic flights of fancy (a la Voivod), classic thrash-and-speed-metal elements (think early Metallica or Megadeth) and an undeniable progressive undercurrent (Uriah Heep, Rush). Lyrically, with words mostly penned by guitarist Kinis, Realm follows an artistic path similar to heavy metal colleagues like Nuclear Assault, Riot or Intruder, mixing socially-conscious story-songs with fantasy-influenced wordplay.

It’s the sheer sonic power of the material on Endless War that keeps Realm in high favor among metal collectors, though, from the unrelenting search-and-destroy mission that is “All Heads Will Turn To The Hunt” to the gentle-like-a-sledgehammer Zeppisms of “Root Of Evil” or the soul-crushing, eardrum-busting, liver-shaking sturm und drang of “Poisoned Minds.” To further turn the world on its head, Realm dared to deliver a red hot cover of the Beatles “Eleanor Rigby,” reinventing the classic rock chestnut in a way that not even John Lennon’s mother would recognize.

In the long run, Realm didn’t have the spark in ‘em to carry on much further than Endless War. They released an appropriately vicious follow-up, Suiciety, in 1990, which has also been reissued by MVD Audio with the entire luxury package, and the band reportedly recorded an unreleased third album a couple of years later. As I’ve told you all before, however, the early-90s proved to be a sodden bloody killing floor for all things metal, and it wasn’t until later in the decade when boy bands suddenly ruled the earth that shaggy-headed teenaged miscreants (much like the Reverend when he was a young Neanderthal) went looking for more meaningful musical experiences, finding Realm’s fine pair of albums in the process.

Regardless of your tastes in metal (I like mine barbequed, personally), if you still get shivers at the sound of clashing guitars and are drawn to rampaging drumbeats like a fleabitten hound at the sound of a dog whistle, you owe it to yourself to dig up a copy of Realm’s Endless War. Provided a proper reissuing with scalpel-sharp 24-bit remastering, a high-quality shiny gold disc, original art, an attractive booklet with lots of words and song lyrics (and liner notes from guitarist Takis Kinis) in a limited edition of 2k, you’d better find your copy today. The Reverend doth decree it!

(Click on the CD cover to buy Endless War from Amazon.com)

Roadrunner Classix Revisited: Xentrix

Back in February, I wrote about MVD Audio, the CD end of the Music Video Distributors empire, coming to an agreement with Roadrunner Records to reissue nearly two dozen of the label’s classic ‘80s metal titles in grand new limited editions on gold discs with original cover art, liner notes, lyrics and everything – hell, you can read all about it over at our sister blog, Ryan Adams Sucks. Having received a number of these groovy reissue discs from the good folks at MVD, and after listening to them repeatedly over the past couple of months (between my stories on teevee and, well, that job thing), now it’s time to write a few words about these mutts.

UK thrashmasters Xentrix (pronounced “Zen Tricks” for you Hooked On Phonics™ types), unremarkably, began life as a garden-variety Metallica cover band known about town as Sweet Vengeance. That they chose to channel Metallic is not surprising, really – British bands struggled during the late-80s to define their own particular brand of thrash-and-speed-metal chops and many of ‘em sounded like Lars and crew. By the time of the band’s signing with the fledgling Roadrunner label in 1988, based on the strength of their four-song demo tape, the band had changed its name to Xentrix and had already begun to develop its own voice.

Released in 1989, Shattered Existence is one raucous mother of a debut disc. The band kicks the amps up to “11” before declaring “No Compromise,” and then they kept the damn tape rolling long past the point where their collective ears began to bleed. “Dark Enemy” offers up a literal human sacrifice in the form of guitarist Kristian Havard’s hands – surely he lost them after performing the song’s caustic fretboard runs, while “Bad Blood” expanded the band’s musical palette, displaying melodic elements alongside machine-gun drumming, courtesy of the bombastic Dennis Gasser. Vocalist/guitarist and band founder Chris Astley is a capable frontman, his vox sounding like the same shade of gray as James Hetfield’s, snapping and growling like a rabid pup above the razor-sharp mix. The rest of Shattered Existence mines similar thrash/speed-metal turf, alternating between Iommi-inspired heavy riffing and lightning-fast, virtually blinding lead runs.

This MVD reissue of Shattered Existence tacks on three songs from the band’s ill-fated (but energetic) 1990 Ghostbusters EP. The three-song vinyl was released as a stopgap to satisfy new Xentrix’s fans until the release of the For Whose Advantage? album later that year. The band’s inspired cover of Ray Parker Jr’s movie theme song was met with threats of a legal smackdown, however, and the label was forced to recall the EP from the stores. The episode set Xentrix back a bit, but they regrouped and released three more albums for Roadrunner with Astley at the helm, sadly experiencing diminishing returns with each one, proving that they had pretty much spent their creative allowance on Shattered Existence.

Met with commercial indifference in a fluctuating market that had begun to favor grunge bands and vacuous pop, Xentrix dropped its founding frontman and released one last album, 1996’s Scourge, with a new singer and guitarist before disappearing off the heavy metal map. Shattered Existence remains as a classic example of ‘80s-era thrash-metal, however, a solid collection of songs with performances that transcended the musician’s combined skills. With old-school thrashers like Testament and Exodus still kicking the ball around and digging up new fans from beneath the blood-soaked sod of the music industry, Xentrix deserves another day in the sun....

(Click on the CD cover to buy Shattered Existence from Amazon.com)