BANDS U MAY HAVE SLEPT ON: THE ACCUSED #CROSSOVER #THRASH #80s
I was fortunate to grow up in the Seattle area during a time in which there were some seriously fucking great metal and punk bands: Forced Entry, Dumt, Last Gasp, Daterape, and Bitter End were all sick, but none of them were as groundbreaking, insane, and generally fucking awesome as THE ACCUSED.
Probably my overall favorite Accused song, “Pounding Nails (Into the Lid of Your Coffin)”
The 80s were all about crossover, combining the best of punk/hardcore and metal, and in my opinion few did it better than The Accused. To me, what is most distinctive about them is how much more metal they were than their peers. Most crossover bands started as punk bands, and as they learned how to play better became more metal, but The Accused always seemed to be equally at home in both genres.
Their early albums (Return of Martha Splatterhead and More Fun Than An Open Casket Funeral) were a bit more on the hardcore end of the spectrum, and while the later material was more polished and overtly metal, they never lost of energy and reckless abandon of punk. Blaine’s vocals were also WAAAAAY ahead of their timen– I had never heard anything like that, and I think it’s safe to say I wasn’t alone. My personal favorite album is 1990’s Grinning Like An Undertaker, which featured a new drummer that was more of a pure metal guy who played double bass and was the closest thing they ever did to straight-up thrash, but their whole catalog is great.
Aside from their music, The Accused had some of the best cover art you’ll ever see, featuring infinitely-detailed monsters that couldn’t possibly be cooler to a 12 year-old kid like me who stumbled across them at the record store. They even had their own comic book, which I had up until a couple of years ago — it’s a shame I lost it, because it’s probably worth a small fortune these days on eBay.
Showing their punk roots with a cover of GBH’s “Sick Boy”
I actually didn’t know they did an official video for this song until I stumbled upon it tonight, but “Splatter Rock” is a pretty underrated gem in their portfolio
Nu-thrash bands ruthlessly sodomize the corpses of bands like DRI, Dr. Know and Cryptic Slaughter, in the process bringing well-deserved acclaim to bands of that ilk who bridged the gap between metal and punk. You would think that with the internet, there would be no carcasses left to rape, that every band worth stealing from would be common knowledge. While that might be true for the most part, I haven’t heard nearly as much about The Accused as I feel like they deserve.
They reunited in 2003 or so, and I think are still around in some form or another? Either way, do yourself a favor and track down anything you can with their name on it — I have no idea if their albums have been reissued or not, but whatever the case, they’re worth the effort!
-Sergeant D.
