Album review : UNCLE SLAM – Will Work For Food and When God Dies (2 CD Reissue)

Cherry Red [Release date : 26.07.24]

Uncle Slam’s roots grew and blossomed in the fertile ground of Punk and Thrash, California style, in the late 80s, taking shape initially in the form of Suicidal Tendencies. Then splintering off into various forms, one of which was Uncle Slam.

It suffered the expected ins and outs of band members, par for the course in the world of rock and metal.
Still, the line-up was a unifying constant when it came to studio recording: Todd Moyer (vocals/guitars), Amery Smith (drums) and Simon Oliver / RJ Herrera (bass).

CD1: Will Work For Food (1993)
CD2: When God Dies (1995)

The band’s second and third albums present a caustic collection of corrosive, juiced up heavy metal, mixing punk energy with splotches of predatory, Sabbath like heaviosity.
Mostly branded as “Crossover Thrash”.

Will Work For Food is lyrically strong and overwhelmingly aggressive. It’s a joy to hear a band with a message, firing out anti-establishment rhetoric with a real sense of indignation. ‘Dominant Submission’, ‘Face The Fight’ and the title track, ‘Will Work For Food’, are all a real call to arms for the underclass, wherever they may be.

In a neat plot twist, the band cover Led Zeppelin song ‘Dazed And Confused’, which has divided opinion on and off for years.
If you’re deeply invested in Punk, then you’ll swoon over the band’s headlong charge into the guts of the song, stripping away the hard rock veneer, exposing its anti-rock rhythms.

When God Dies opened to mixed reviews. No matter how much we all claim to embrace change, what we really want is more of the same.
This wasn’t.

Again, the band unearthed a handful of blackened nuggets, full of funk flourishes and pumped bass lines, but with much of the attitude and intensity excised.

The songs twist and turn through the album’s 50 minutes, occasionally exploring the world of metal outside their previous boundaries.

The dynamic ‘Smoke Em If You Got Em’ was acknowledged by the Media cognoscenti as the album’s standout track,

That said, while the slow motion movement of ‘An Offering To A Deity’, fusing rap with Metallica, is a clear sign of progress, ‘End of The Line’ tips its hat to the music’s garage roots.

This 2 CD Deluxe Digipak release includes predictably informative liner notes from journalist, Mark Freebase, who has a talent for getting inside the music and telling us what he sees. ***1/2

Review by Brian McGowan

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Power Plays w/c 9 December 2024

In this sequence we play ‘The Best of 2024′ GRTR! reviewer selections

Featured Albums w/c 9 December 2024

09:00-12:00 The Best of 2024 (Melodic Rock)
12:00-13:00 The Best of 2003-2024 (Melodic Hard Rock)
14:00-16:00 The Best of 2024 (Singer Songwriter)