By JAY ROBERTS

The Cassette Chronicles is a continuing series of mini reviews and reflections on albums from the 1980’s and 1990’s. The aim of this series is to highlight both known and underappreciated albums from rock, pop and metal genres from this time period through the cassette editions of their releases. Some of the albums I have known about and loved for years, while others are new to me and were music I’ve always wanted to hear. There will be some review analysis and my own personal stories about my connection with various albums. These opinions are strictly my own and do not reflect the views of anyone else at Limelight Magazine.

SUICIDAL TENDENCIES – LIGHTS…CAMERA…REVOLUTION (1990)

Before the release of the Lights…Camera…Revolution album, Suicidal Tendencies was merely a blip of sorts on my own personal musical radar screen. My knowledge of them pretty much consisted of a couple songs from their previous album How Will I Laugh Tomorrow When I Can’t Even Smile Today and that they’d been banned from playing shows in Los Angeles either for being perceived as being a gang or for having gang relations.

But all that changed when this album, their 5th studio release, came out. While the band was known more for being a punk/thrash crossover act beforehand, Lights…Camera…Revolution pretty much took the band fully into the thrash metal genre.

That is made pretty clear with the album’s opening track “You Can’t Bring Me Down”, a brutally effective song that while it never made a dent in the charts as a single release, it is still considered a successful track. The band ended up being nominated for a Grammy for “Best Metal Performance” in 1991.

The song starts out with a slow building intro before singer Mike Muir comes in with a shouted “What the hell’s going on around here!” and then the band just explodes into the aggressive, assaulting cacophony led by guitarists Rocky George (who co-wrote the song) and Mike Clark. It’s a furious blitzkrieg of rage and the accompanying video is apparently in answer to that Los Angeles ban I mentioned above. What’s more is that after the guitar solo, Mike Muir cuts back in with an absolutely astonishing and perfectly written rant that encapsulated the band’s feelings. Unfortunately, because of some profanity, it tended to get cut or bleeped when you heard it on the radio and from the video itself. I also don’t know how Muir manages the rapid fire delivery of the vocals. I used to try to sing along (badly) to this track and I always ended up with a sore jaw because of the pace of his performance.

After the fury of the lead track, the song “Lost Again” ends up being far slower moving but still has a heavier vibe to the music with an extra sharp edge to the vocal performance.

The album had a total of four singles released from it and the last two were on the album’s first side. The first of that latter duo is the song “Alone”. In the beginning you get a softer delivery and a more clean vocal style from Mike Muir that serves as a set up for the more uptempo pace of the song after the first lyrical stanza. As the song proceeds, the music keeps growing more relentless and the vocals match that style too.

The last single was the song “Lovely” which is the first song that seems to fully incorporate some of the funk influences brought in to the band’s sound by their new bassist Robert Trujillo. The funk style is merged rather nicely with the more aggressive rocking side of things.

The first side of the album closes out with the song “Give It Revolution”. The song mixes tempos with a heavy mid-tempo groove that gets faster over the course of the song. The lyrical content on this song is superb and I’ve always loved the line “You can put a bullet in my head, but you can’t kill a word I’ve said.” What I’ve read online about this album is that the band’s lyrical content got a lot more sophisticated beginning with Lights…Camera…Revolution and I’d say this song in particular is a good demonstration of that.

The first side of the album remains a stone cold classic collection of songs nearly 35 years after it was released. You might expect a bit of a letdown when you flip the cassette over to Side Two, but Suicidal Tendencies keeps up the intensity right from the start.

The opening track on Side Two is “Get Whacked” and after an opening overture that sounds something like you’d hear in a royal ceremony, the music becomes an infectiously foot-stomping masher with Muir’s insanely catchy raw vocals drawing you in AND slapping you in the face.

The next song is “Send Me Your Money” which might be the one track most metal fans have heard of the most. Or at least saw the video back in the day on Headbanger’s Ball. It’s a hard-hitting funky-slash-rocking number that sees the band deliver a brutally hilarious though sincere takedown of those preachers you see on TV begging for your money.

After “Send Me Your Money” the band switches gears and delivers a gripping number with “Emotion No. 13”. Musically, the song is pretty relentless. And when you sit back and listen to the lyrics, there’s some incredible lines in it. Even after all these years, I was flabbergasted to “finally” hear the line “I wonder if I’ll ever do the things you want the way you want / When I don’t even know what I want yet.” That may not resonate quite the same with me now as it would’ve back when the album was first released but I can grasp the significance at least.

I always thought the song title “Disco’s Out, Murder’s In” was a little weird and I’m not sure I have ever gotten what this song means. That said, it is an incredibly involving song with the song title repeated a lot and a music score that is like getting hit by a 2X4.

The album closes out with the song “Go’n Breakdown” has a nice twist in Muir’s vocal delivery in front of a blazing musical soundtrack. And they go out with a kind of sneering unbreakable attitude right to the very last lyric line and musical note.

I actually got to see Suicidal Tendencies opening for Queensryche on their Empire Tour. Sadly, as much as I love this album I hated their performance. I don’t have blood tests from that night but their show was ruined by Mike Muir who seemed either drunk, high or both. He was nearly unintelligible whether singing or speaking and it just cast a disappointing shadow on the entire band’s set.

That said, it can’t take away from just how incredible the Lights…Camera…Revolution is. Thirty-four years after its release and every time I play the album, I get amped up. Whatever sense of contrarian attitude that remains within me is fueled by that still astonishing “You Can’t Bring Me Down” song. The album remains a turning point in the band’s evolution and for me it stands head and shoulders above the rest of their catalog.

NOTES OF INTEREST: While the Lights…Camera…Revolution album only peaked at #101 on the album chart, it remains my personal favorite and it seems to be one of the more critically acclaimed releases for the band.
The album was the first that featured Robert Trujillo who would later go on to join Metallica years later. However, it was the last album that featured drummer R.J. Herrerra.