DRI: Thrash Zone

DRI: Thrash Zone

1989

Metal Blade Records

Format I Own it on: Compact Disc

Track Listing: 1. Thrashard  2. Beneath the Wheel  3. Enemy Within  4. Strategy  5. Labeled Uncurable  6. You Say I'm Scum  7. Gun Control  8. Kill the Words  9. Drown You Out  10. The Trade  11. Standing in Line  12. Give a Hoot  13. Worker Bee  14. Abduction


Here are a couple more old D.B & Slice cartoons...This one is called "D.B. Devours Slice"...

 

Now for "Slice & Slice Go for a Walk"...

Let's move onto today's record..."Thrash Zone" by DRI...Although I should probably step back a bit...There were two albums in-between "Dealing With It" and "Thrash Zone" that I don't own, but are important in the band's evolution...After the straight hardcore of the first two records, on 1987's "Crossover" the band went into a much more thrash metal direction, lengthening the songs, adding more complex song structures and heavy metal guitar heroics, but keeping the punk attitude resulting in the crossover-thrash genre...

"Crossover" is a great record and probably the band's most seamless mix of punk and metal...I've been feeling pretty nostalgic for it lately, so I'm hoping to score a copy again, so I can do a post on that one too...To be honest, I haven't ever heard their "4 of a Kind" album...I think I might be a poseur or something...

By the time DRI  got around to "Thrash Zone," they were pretty much just a straight thrash band with a more down to Earth vocalist than most other metal bands...Focusing on more street-level concerns like gun control and partying than the usual heavy metal D&D/"Paradise Lost" imagery...

 "Thrash Zone" was my introduction to the band via "Beneath the Wheel" which gained the band a lot of attention...It hit all my "fuck yea" spots as a kid...Bratty delivery about falling asleep at parties and getting crushed under the wheels of an adult society that's completely out of your control...Slow mosh riffs giving way to fast thrash... And one of the defining lyrics of my High School days:

"Run! Make the grade,
School's a job you don't get paid..."

Being a 14 year-old fuck-up, those lyrics represented some of the most profound wisdom I'd ever heard ...My "Siddhartha," if you will...But I have a feeling this is one of those albums where my nostalgia might be getting in my way...It's hard to say what I would think of it if I was hearing it now for the first time...I think it might be one of those "you had to be there" things....To be honest, some of the lyrics are so dopey that they're LOL funny (see the invocation of Woodsy the Owl in "Give a Hoot")...

But for those of us who look back fondly on the era, this thing is a blast...Album opener "Thrashard" reminds me of "Toxic Waltz"-era Exodus or something...The kind of loving ode to a moshpit that they just don't make anymore:

"A boot to your forehead,
A knee in your face,
Your nose and lips start to bleed.
Like a wild Indian
From outer space,
Drunk and high on weed..."

I'll be damned if this doesn't make me want to run around in a violent circle with a bunch of sweaty strangers....

(Here I am in the pit! The pit! The pit! The pit! IN-THE-PIT!)

Despite "Thrashard" and maybe grand finale "Abduction," I can't help but feel that the real reason to buy this album is for "Beneath the Wheel"...The other songs are alright, but there's a by-the-book thrashiness to a lot of them that make for some good slamming but I not too many transcendent moments...I think modern hardcore fans would enjoy the first two albums over this and I can imagine heavy metallers getting more out of  "Crossover"...This oddly sterile late 80's metal sound probably only appeals to class of '89-ers...I still enjoy it anyway (except those endless sirens and gunshot sounds in "Gun Control" which continue to drive me flippin' nuts)...

It thrills me to no end that there have been some recent bands resurrecting this style...It only lasted a brief period of time, but it was a great era for fast, aggressive music...Before the wrestling attitude shit, before the Nu-Metal daddy issues, there used to be bands whose only goal was to have a good time, tossing a few socially conscious messages in here and there, and trying their best to make the kids in the audience lose their damn minds...A noble cause if I've ever heard one...

Let's check out some DRI...Here's "Abduction"...Enjoy...