Friday 15 July 2011

Infectious Grooves - Grrove Family Cyco (1994)

Suicidal Tendencies vocal loon Mike Muir must be commended for taking a stale, irritating heavy metal trend - funk metal - and breathing some life back into it. Long after the fad had seemingly died, Muir wasn't content to see it as a short-lived phenomenon and so brought the funky ass bassline back and merged it with a metal crunch, and of course, his soulful, choppy raps. Clearly, the more angst-ridden hardcore sound of Suicidal Tendencies wasn't suited enough to this type of Parliament meets metal chug, and so 'Groove Family...', being the third Infectious opus, is rolled out as more than just a goofy side project. Of course, the whole issue of the funk metal trend was it's oh so sickly image and cartoon style, which does of course litter this record, but instead of being a weak-ass attempt at a myriad of styles, 'Groove Family...' shifts towards a wondrously heavy and often sublime groove, even if I'm not really concerned with lyrical content and the like. Stick with it and you may find something of note, but...and this is a big BUT, if you became quickly ill at the late '80s, and early '90s funk metal trend, you may find this too vomit inducing, but still, kudos for Mike for doing his own thing, but for me the listening experience would be a couple of times a year if that.

6/10

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