Suicidal Tendencies and their insane, convoluted family tree do for confused crossover dudes in bandannas what Entombed does for lonely death metal dudes wearing sweatpants: we make spreadsheets, pie graphs, family tree diagrams, we place phone calls to Muir, M.s and Petrov, LG.s in the phone books and awkwardly explain we have the wrong number, we do anything we can to make sense out of it all but NO ONE CAN MAKE SENSE OUT OF IT ALL so we just continue loving both bands (and all related bands) despite the fact that if you ask any of us who played anything on any given ST or Entombed album, our brains just ooze out of our ears and we whimper “I’m a suicyco muthafucka…” (or “I still am actually unclear on who sung on Clandestine…”) as we collapse to the ground, no closer to understanding anything than we were twenty years ago, exhaustion of a futile life barely lived fully caught up to us. Anyway, here’s something to confuse you further: a reissue of an old No Mercy album, a crossover band started up by guitarist Mike Clark (who would later join ST) that existed during ST’s very early years and went a bit more metal just before ST did; indeed, many of these songs BECAME ST songs. Urgh… Anyway, No Mercy put out one full length back in 1987, and here it is again, and it basically sounds like a lost album from ST from between Join The Army and How Will I Laugh Tomorrow When I Can’t Even Smile Today. For those keeping count, ST have re-recorded fully 8 of the 9 tunes here (half of them alone on the classic/confusing Controlled By Hatred/Feel Like Shit… Deja Vu album). Anyway, clearly I can’t get past just trying to compartmentalize all this stuff; as for the actual music itself, it’s killer stuff, man, tons of energy and wild thrash/early crossover sounds, with Mike Muir doing his thing on vocals. This is basically the album I’ve been wanting ST to make since Suicidal For Life… except I’ve already heard ST do half these songs, so, I kinda have already heard this… ah, forget it. Turn it up, suicyco: this is good stuff.
