The Ripple Effect: The Music Commentary Radio Show  

So, I’m sifting through my shelves of vinyl the other day, pulling out Mylar sleeved 12” discs of bands like Forbidden, Hirax, Nuclear Assault, and Armored Saint, and I’m teleported back to a time when my biggest concerns were passing algebra. Ah . . . good times. I remember waking up on test day in absolute terror like it was this morning. Tangent check . . . mixed in with all of this great late 80’s thrash metal or crossover punk stuff was a band that I had damn near forgotten about. DBC’s first album, Dead Brain Cells, was released in 1987 and was rife with music that mixed hard edged thrash groove tempos and socio-political lyrics. Then to shake things up and show that they weren’t some poor man’s D.R.I. knock off, the band threw in some off time, almost jazzy portions to their compositions. You know, just enough nuance to keep you guessing. Unrelenting in sonic brutality, uncompromising in musical vision, and a scathing vocal diatribe that brings Reagan-era headlines of every newspaper screaming back to the moment. This album transcended every other album that had come out at that time (bold statement, yes) by incorporating the aforementioned musical qualities, but more importantly, following the shrill screams of their inner muse. The most concise way that I can think of describing Dead Brain Cells, and DBC as a band, is progressive hardcore. That may not sound like such an off the wall description these days, but in 1987 . . . prog and hardcore were oil and water.

more . . . http://ripplemusic.blogspot.com/2009/05/dbc-dead-brain-cells.html