Customer Reviews

Tangled Up / Live Or Else

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Interesting choices for reissue. This disc contains the last two Necros LPs, generally comprising their least essential recordings. Not to say there aren't a few blistering cuts here.

Prior to Tangled Up's release, my metal-oriented friends and I had been hanging at singer Henssler's place practically every weekend, where we'd hear rough mixes of the forthcoming LP, plus we played a few shows with them in Detroit, so we really got to know about half the new material pretty well. To cover Pink Floyd's "Nile Song" was an ambitious move back in '84-'85, but, coming as it did hot on the heels the Necros recording of "Walkin' The Dog" (on the Jail Jello EP) this sort of long-haired semi-stoner rock did not go over well with the "hardcore" Detroit contingent.

If you've heard bootlegs of Necros recordings like the I.Q 32 nine-song EP and the Conquest For Death LP, the out-and-out rock 'n' roll of many of these tracks ("Tangled Up," "Power of Fear," "Big Chief") may leave you less than impressed. At the time, the move away from thrash represented the band's dissatisfaction with the hardcore "scene," a denunciation of misguided Straight Edge fascism in that scene, and a strong assertion that irony, humor and "rock" should always have a place in "punk." Plus, these guys have always dug Motorhead, The Nuge, etc.

Thus, guitarist Andy Wendler frequently freaks freely on his Hamer Standard, Todd Swalla's drum sound boasts a metallic edge (courtesy of producer and Seduce manager Ken Waagner), and bassist Ron "Smythe" Sakowski finally gets his thudding plonk on tape, having been in the band for a couple years at this point.

It's quite obvious which tracks were most recently added to the bands repertoire; there are a few surprisingly effective thrashers (older), the aforementioned uptempo rockers (newer), and, complementing the extended jam at the end of "Big Chief," two pieces of instrumental filler ("500 Years," "A House Full Of Drunks") originally intended to take up space and push the LP's length toward the half-hour mark. These "fillers" do possess a certain charm, and it's nice to hear Ron tinkling the ivories on "Drunks," but the overall result left some in the "community" bellowing "sell-out," which really irked the band members. In fact, for some Detroit "punks" it was the last straw, leading to physical threats after one memorable Detroit show. Personally, having been very impressed at the time, I still dig the record for what it is. Hey, Why Be Something That You're Not (Anymore)?

Faced with a "contractual obligation" a couple years later (after a tour with Megadeth), the band returned to the studio to record their fake "live" final LP. Here humor and irony take center stage, so to speak, with "screw it, we're breaking up anyway" and "gee, people sure are stupid" watching from the wings, resulting in both an acceptable rock LP and, simultaneously, a passable comedy album.

This two-fer is an accurate representation of a band's eagerness to move on and get beyond the hardcore pigeonhole. There's plenty of wise-ass Midwest humor here, along with an acknowledgement of '70s influences, and a much more "polished" overall sound. For better or worse, this is what Necros sounded like in the mid-to-late '80s. Of course, we'd all like to see the early stuff reissued (Sex Drive, Nine-song, Conquest... Ambionic Studios Demos??), but it ain't gonna happen, so we get this, and I suppose we're grateful, I dunno...

Back when this came out noone knew what to make of it. The hardcore audience HATED it and it wasn't heavy enough for the metal crowd. I saw them open for the Circle Jerks when "Tangled Up" came out (1986? 87?) and they did not go over well at all. The crowd just sort of stood there not knowing what to do.

If the idea of a hardcore band rediscovering Aerosmith and Ted Nugent interests you, then you probably own this already. The fake live album is pretty good, too.

Check out Mighty High...In Drug City.