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.
