SUICIDE SOLUTION Shake Well Before Abuse (Mediacorpse)
Growing up as a teenager in the 70s, my concept of heavy metal (or hard rock, if you will) was shaped by the popular bands of the day i.e. Deep Purple, Led Zepellin, Bad Company, KISS etc. What most folk today would describe as “old school” or “classic rock”. As regular visitors to the Power of Pop will be aware, for me, its all about the tunes and for the hard rock bands of the 70s, melodies blended with nasty riffs were the order of the day… along with lyrics about sex, fantasy and the like.
The 80s was probably metal’s biggest decade as the genre evolved (“devolved”?) and went mainstream with the now much-aligned genre – pop metal (or hair metal). At the same place, the hard rock of the 70s had found favour with the glam & punk rock kids to birth bands like Guns N Roses, Skid Row, LA Guns etc.
That era is long gone and metal is now an entirely different beast. But 80s metal is alive and well in bands like Singapore band Suicide Solution. Named after the Ozzy Osbourne song and formed around the nucleus of Joe Ferdinands (aka Joe Suicide), Suicide Solution began life in the 90s and over the years, amidst several personnel changes, has simply kept the hard rock faith.
Now, backed by a young, hungry group of musicians (viz Evigan X, Faust and Rudolf Stryker), Suicide Solution has been reborn with a cracking new album – Shake Well Before Abuse – which captures well the zietgiest of 80s rock without being irrelevant to today’s metal kids. Tracks like the infectious Drugs N’ Kisses (a radio hit if I’ve ever heard one), propulsive Ain’t Missing That Much & the fret-happy Hellspawn, make Shake Well Before Abuse a comprehensive rock-metal feast for fans of the genre.
Don’t be too bothered about the fairly standard heavy metal lyrical concepts – you know what to expect – although the social commentary of Zombie Nation and Dead Men Walking (about certain harsh realities in Singapore) is to be applauded. Instead, fasten your seat belts and get ready for the ride…
