Lights, Camera, Revolution, by Suicidal Tendencies
Reviewed by John Ingham
So, Suicidal Tendencies. Well I know of Suicidal Tendencies, sort of, more or less. I guess the issue is that really I missed the boat on Suicidal Tendencies by being born a little too late. I’m afraid I didn’t get into decent music til my mid/late teens when I first heard Offspring: Smash. When ST released this I was 7. I was definitely far more of a Ska Punk & Nu Metal rock kid, uniform wearing; black band t-shirt, baggy jeans, more chains attached to the waist band than necessary.
Deftones, KoRn, Vandals, Linkin Park, Incubus, Less than Jake, Capdown, Pennywise, Sublime, SoaD, NIN etc… Metallica were old guard as far as I was concerned at that time.
It wasn’t til uni that I encountered the earlier rock and metal offerings that were the forebears to my favourite bands, Rock of Ages was the club night I learnt of such hair rock and thrash. Good job 2nd year housemates. They opened my ears to bands such as this and CofC and a whole swathe of other, dubious artists. Unfortunately for Suicidal Tendencies they only really got one or two tracks at these nights where they were mainly overshadowed by bigger, more recognisable heavy hitters and I didn’t chase up their albums as having listened to this I could (and quite likely will) definitely get into them.
Standout tracks “Lovely” which has audio pleasing similarities to Wildhearts and Buckcherry. Later bands that I love. It’s not a long track, nor a lyrically deep one. However I liked it. “Send me your money” – I recognise this from moshing along at Rock of Ages mostly in a very drunk, happy, slightly confused way. This was a song I always knew and liked, but if pressed, then or before this review, definitely couldn’t have named the artist!
I do love me a bit of slap bass!
I think the technically best track is probably the opening song “You can’t bring me down” which has touches of Metallica, their contemporaries, and punk, I want to say Pennywise, but without checking I suspect Pennywise came later and took influence from S.T…..and a guitar playspeed close to that of a nosebleed accompanied by excellent singing. All that said, I prefer “Send me your money”, possibly for the nostalgia, maybe the slap bass, maybe the lyrics…probably all 3.
Overall I give Lights, Camera, Revolution a solid 7/10. It’s an excellent album with bucketfuls of technical proficiency; fast paced guitars, good widdlytastic solos, solid heavy drumming and very catchy punk and metal lyrics both…..and without a doubt a lot of the bands I love to pieces would not sound the same without this.