Suicidal Tendencies – World Gone Mad

On September 30th the legendary punk and metal crossover icons Suicidal Tendencies will release the follow up to their 2013 album, 13. World Gone Mad is Suicidal Tendencies first studio album featuring the legendary drummer Dave Lombardo, best know for his long tenure in Slayer, and the new members Ra Diaz, Bass, and Jeff Pogan, guitar, who join original vocalist Mike Muir, and veteran guitarist of two decades Dean Pleasants, to create the latest chapter in Suicidal Tendencies long history. You’d think with Suicidal Tendencies long affiliation with thrash metal, along with the addition of former Slayer sticksman Dave Lombardo, that this would be veer even further into metal territory, well you’d be wrong.

Opening track Clap Like Ozzy has a geuine hardcore feel, as you’d expect Dave Lombardo is an absolute powerhouse, but the new line up seems to have re-energised Suicidal Tendencies. The New Degeneration opens with a chugging metal guitar riff which steadily increases in speed and intensity, Living For Life starts with an mellow unsettling riff before kicking into life like it’s been injected with adrenaline and Get Your Fight On captures the essence of classic Suicidal Tendencies tracks like Trip At The Brain. The album’s title track carries a relentless and pounding beat whilst Happy Never After is more of a return to the thrash era, before One Finger Salute opens with a further blast on intense hardcore. World Gone Mad continues to surprise as it veers between thrash and punk influences, the epic track Still Dying To Live, clocking in at almost eight minutes, lulls you into a false sense of security, it opens with a mellower style than you’d expect from Suicidal Tendencies bfeore it builds up into a familiar intense hardcore, finally This World eases you out of the album with the mellowest track on the album.

I remember seeing Suicidal Tendencies back in their heyday, still to this day I have never seen stage diving like I saw that night and I rember the ceiling tiles being destroyed by flying bodies in the tiny sweaty International venue in Manchester, and this is the only Suicidal Tendencies album since those heady days that has taken me back to that era. It features the original punk attitude they had at the start of career, whilst this is the dominant influences on the album, World Gone Mad also features some of thrashier elements that have been incorporated into their sound over the years. For a band to produce an album of this quality when well into their fourth decade is a serious statement of intent, for me this is Suicidal Tendencies best album in two decades and marks a serious return to form.

World Gone Mad can be pre-ordered here