Sunday, October 24, 2010

Crossover

So enamored with the trend of mixing metal and hardcore in the late '80s was D.R.I. that they even titled their second album Crossover, and while it may not be Dealing With It, if all thrash was this good in 1987, I too may have invested in some stretch jeans and some huge puffy white sneakers. Funny, but I think this album informed 99.9% of Municipal Waste's aesthetic and sound, and MW influenced a veritable onslaught of teenage Civil War Reenactment style retro thrash bands, thus making Crossover a highly influential album. When it was released people fucking hated it. Way better than most of the other hardcore band's forrays into metal at the time.

23 comments:

Anonymous said...

I think that is their third album after 22 Song LP and Dealing With it.

Aesop said...

At about 16 minutes I am not sure the 22 song release counts as an LP.

Anonymous said...

i always thought this was mint. Didnt realise it was frowned upon by the scenesters. Fuck em all, i rekon.
BTW, i really dig this blog. I been following for ages now. Never post much.
Peace.

Flesh Monolith said...

great album and band; was able to see them last year.

I'd say Municipal Waste takes more from Wehrmacht, a band which I like better than DRI (maybe it's just the novelty).

Anyway, if you don't know them Biermacht is essential.
(the band later became Cryptic Slaughter)

Love the blog.

Anonymous said...

Thanks for this Aesop! This is quite a classic however you want to list it. Reminds me of my late teens when some thrashhead dude enlightened me on the whole crossover thing...at high volume (what else?!). I'm quite a fan of 92's Definition, but either way it's great to be brought back to some good ole skankin tunes!
mk

Anonymous said...

Plus, originally it came out as a 7"
("dirty rotten EP" was the title).

Devil Dick said...

16 mins is only a wee bit shorter than any early 70's kiss full length....

i'd say short LP...?

Anonymous said...

this album has some damn good riffs on it- and while i dont like the 2 albums after this,pantera sure did- they stole dri guitar sound and riffs like motherfucker thief. and also besides puffy white shoes,cheesy "thrash" bands with long "sweet" hair leaned head to side in band pictures

Roger Camden said...

"When Hardcore Bands Go Metal" is one of my favorite Jeopardy categories

Shelby Cobras said...

I don't think Wehrmacht "later became" Cryptic Slaughter. I could be wrong, but both bands were putting stuff out around the same time--Cryptic Slaughter out of Santa Monica and Wehrmacht from Portland...?

Graeme said...

I used to draw this logo on my notebooks in high school. Now I look at it and it looks like a fucking speedskater. What was I thinking? Probably "awesome band".

I had no idea that people hated this album either. Oh well.

Anonymous said...

I was a metalhead, but attended more hc shows than metal, and I loved early DRI,Dealing With It was one of the best albums I ever heard, but when Crossover came out, I liked maybe two songs and kept saying "What the fuck is with these 10 minute long songs?? where is the real D.R.I.??"

Still I seen them on that tour and they played a LOT of the old stuff so I was happy, they blew away the whole place, and even the hairspary poser motley Crue crowd were there to check them out..
Pretty sure that was before there were too many thrash vidoes on tv, it was still all word of mouth, fanzines, the occasional metal mag gave a tiny bit on it.

With Crossover, many punks were right to be pissed off, it officially killed the scene, and swtarting with it all DRI albums afterwards sound the same to me

Anonymous said...

Still have the cracked, sun bleached, scraped up, don't-know-how-many-times-it-had-beer-whiskey-whateverelse-on-it cassette fucking tape of this record, and it still plays. Awesomeness...I WIN YOU LOSE!!! HAHAHA

Deathsnake said...

I found this tape the other day in the trunk of my grandmas car.

Anonymous said...

wehrmacht became cryptic slaughter? eh? in what universe?

GRK. said...

"Hooked" off this LP was the first DRI I ever heard. And I was. Nowadays it's that first EP I keep coming back to.

Tel said...

Comments like that of Anonymous (the one with a faulty timepiece) are why I never bothered to check out this record, or anything else D.R.I. did after Dealing With It. When I saw this posted yesterday, I thought, "Hey, awesome, now I can check it out and confirm my suspicions." So, check it out I did... and really, I don't see what people are bitching about. Sure, it's a departure from their earlier material, but not a huge one... there's still plenty of hardcore energy in there, and the songs are still mostly fast as fuck. I deleted the mp3s after one listen, but only because I know that the next time I see this in a CD store I'll be buying it.

redchapterjubilee said...

Twas the first DRI I ever heard. Bought this and SOD's Speak English or Die for a buck each the same day at a swap meet in Nashville 1988. Changed my life.

Anonymous said...

Wehrmacht didn't become Cryptic Slaughter, one of the guys in Wehrmacht was part of the last Cryptic Slaughter line-up after Wehrmacht split.
This D.R.I. record is great, way better than I remembered. I was going in the opposite direction(Metal-> Punk/HC)when this came out, so I frowned on anything metal. Kids...

dannyexplosion said...

Hated this when it came out.... But it grew on me years later in the 90's. Fun stuff.

Poorman´s Jesus said...

I lost my job earlier this year because i decided to stay in chicago and watch these guys. I had no clue they were playing until the day before.It was certainly worth it .

Anonymous said...

I was disappointed that they didn't play more Crossover at MDF. However, I lost my shit when the riff for the Five Year Plan started. Overall still a solid band to see live, despite them dedicating a song to the dude in Slipknot that passed. That was a fail.

Anonymous said...

I lost my shit at MDF when the riff for "the Five Year Plan" started, but was disappointed they didn't play more Crossover material. They also dedicated their set to Dio, and the dude from Slipknot that passed, which confused the fuck out of the crowd. Still a solid band live.