Beast On My Back

New York Hardcore legends CRUMBSUCKERS are at once the most overlooked and the most pivotal of all hardcore metal crossoverists. While not held in the same regard as CBGB’s-borne vets like Agnostic Front or Cro-Mags, CRUMBSUCKERS were a force unto themselves. Their 1986 debut, Life of Dreams is a classic of the genre, but it was with Beast on My Back, originally issued by Combat in 1988, that they bridged their trademark aggression with a new sense of technicality and musical fluidity. It may be the crossover's twisted swansong. From the piano-led opening salvo, “Charge”, it’s clear that guitarists Chuck Linehan and Robbie Koebler weren’t merely content to ignite pits at CB’s or LaMour’s but instead to go where few six-stringers, save maybe big-leaguers like Megadeth or Metallica, had gone before. Tied together with the throaty roar of Chris Notaro, B.O.M.B. crosses technicality with aggression in a way that had never been accomplished before and in the process, rewrote the hardcore rulebook for generations to come.