Up the Dosage!
Wonderdrug
After three years of life as a zine and almost four months as an MP3 blog, this review marks the first appearance of the phrase various artists. It’s time to start posting some compilations, especially if there is some arching theme or motif to them. I’m toying/preparing a movie soundtrack theme week, but that won’t be for awhile. Yeah, I know record labels used to churn out those cheaply priced and assembled sampler CDs, but some of those companies actually put some effort into them.
Take Wonderdrug records for example. This Boston-based label worked almost exclusively with bands from New England. Up the Dosage! provides a snapshot of New England metal and hardcore in the late 1990s. The disc is filled mostly with tent-pole bands from the Boston scene (Reach the Sky, Miltown, Tree, etc…) and New England bands that had (or eventually would) rise to the level of national touring bands (Diecast, Blood for Blood, Scissorfight, etc…). Two of Boston’s craziest and unpredictable bands, Anal Cunt and Non Compos Mentis, make their presences known.
Most interesting of all is the appearance of a pre-Flip Records Staind. The band played “Spleen”, a song that would later appear on Dysfunction. This version of the song is pissed as fuck and kind of sounds like Hatebreed. It’s a far cry from the major-label monstrosity they became. Can you believe that Staind sold out and wussed out so fast for, of all people, Fred fucking Durst? This is a highly entertaining compilation CD and this unique interesting moment in rock history can be yours, right now.
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