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8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
"Incredible" -Dave Lombardo. -One of the best Thrash albums ever!, September 1, 2005
It is hard to think it has already been twenty years since this album came out but when this came out in the Summer of 1985 (around July) it made quite the splash. I still have the original vinyl record that has the sticker on it with the above quote from Dave Lombardo, an early supporter of D.R.I. and this album came out a couple months before "Hell Awaits" and before S.O.D.'s "Speak English or Die". This review is long, but that is the least this album deserves.
But my do times change. Most people today either don't know or have some distain for D.R.I. Just shows you how foolish the kids who run the scene are these days. But without this band who influenced (directly or indirectly) legions of other bands, where would we be? Thrash would sound like Judas Priest on steroids. We also wouldn't have Death Metal or Grindcore. Want names of the influenced? How about Kreator, Dark Angel, Slayer (of course), S.O.D., Nuclear Assault, Vio-lence, Cryptic Slaughter, Hirax, even Napalm Death, to name just of few in the D.R.I. mold.
What "Dealing with It" represents is a slight transition from their previous 1983 effort titled "The Dirty Rotten LP". That album earned them the title of "Fastest band in the world" which was totally true for years afterword despite what one reviewer thinks of a bad MA band that wasn't faster. That '83 LP is as good as this one but has one major difference, the song writing isn't as good as it is on "Dealing With It". The '83 LP goes from sludgy slow to insanely fast almost effortlessy. That idea is preserved here but the transitions in speed aren't as drastic. In '84 we had the "Violent Pacification" EP with heavier sounds guitars and a lot of palm muting. "Dealing With It" takes all these ideas a step further by remaking some of the old songs with heavy double-bass parts, sludgier guitars and thunderous bass lines, and all of this is kept together by the most inoffensive/atonal vocalist in the genre: Kurt Brecht. The songs on this album have so much range that it makes it quite easy to listen to start to finish. There are the hardcore inspired anthems like "I'd Rather be Sleeping" to the longer songs like the classic chugga-chugga rant "Nursing Home Blues".
Spike Cassidy does a marvelous job on the guitars, the bass is sometimes good sometimes bad but this was because Josh Pappe was in rehab for a drug problem so Cassidy and Mikey Offender had to record the bass lines. The vocals are Dirty...Rotten...and therefore good. The drumming is excellent and while I liked Eric Brecht, the first drummer who would go on to play with Hirax and later with Chuck Schuldiner's band Death, Felix Griffin does a marvelous job. On some of the songs his drumming is better than others, but on the tracks where he wrote the drum lines they are awesome. While people drool over Lombardo, Hoglan, Benante, and Bostaph, Griffin is an underrated drummer. From a drummer's perspective, compared to what other people were doing at the time, in between the bashing of the cymbals and the blast beats he plays some interesting swing and jazz lines occasionally on the ride, and triplets and accents on the bass drums. He was ahead of his time, and frankly one of my favorite drummers from this genre.
The only draw back to this album is the production is terrible. They didn't command too much of a budget in those days so the album sounds very very raw. Sometimes you can't even hear the bass drum at all or the snare. This needs to have a 24-bit digital remastering.
This is a good place to start with the D.R.I. catalogue and while I like their earlier and later stuff up 'til 'Definition', this remains the undisputed classic of their catalogue. The best thing about D.R.I. is you can still see them live for like $10. Can't say the same of Megadeth, Slayer or Anthrax. 5,000,000 stars...if that was possible.
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Top Notch Hardcore-Thrash, March 17, 2005
When D.R.I.'s "Dealing With It" came out in 1985, very few people within the metal community have ever heard of them. Some of their early champions, after all, were metalheads, like SLAYER's Dave Lombardo. So, after hearing such praise from some of Thrash Metal's most respected drummers, I proceeded to buy the album. Boy, was I in for a RIDE! This had to be the fastest, dirtiest album I have EVER heard up to that point. It wasn't necessarily "heavy" (although, it actually is, compared to what's being paraded as 'punk' these days!), but it sounds, even to this day, mercilessly FAST....and CATCHY! Yep, the songs, no matter how fast they are, stick in your head: "I Don't Need Society", "Snap", "Marriage", Reaganomics, "Mad Man", Couch Slouch", "Equal People"...the song list goes on (the album has 25 songs! A true 'rarity' at the time!). The production is actually quite clear; you can hear every instrument...it's not just a blast noise. The drumming of Felix is beyond human. Few HC drummers had this manic flair for lightning fast rolls played with surgical precision. The vocals of Kurt Brecht must have been the FASTEST ever. Not even grindcore kings NAPALM DEATH sang THIS fast! Their lyrics were just a blur, while D.R.I.'s lyrics can actually be followed, albeit, at unbelievable speeds. The guitar sounds of Spike are predating the hardcore-metal crossover. D.R.I. were one of the original crossover bands (bands that mixed punk and metal alike), although most of "Dealing With It" resides in the "punk" side of things. It wasn't until the next album (the aptly titled, "Crossover") that the band embraced the metal sound dearly. "Dealing With It" must be seen as a milestone for the punk genre. It's an album that shows an evolutory stage within the punk genre and succeeds at it. If you really wish to hear what a true CROSSOVER band sounds like, then THIS is the album you've been waiting to hear!
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
hands down, the best thrash record ever recorded. , August 24, 2005
This record is basically a rehashed DIRTY ROTTEN ep (with a few new tricks, and new songs to match). The change the band, and the rerecorded songs, went under within a period of 3 years is mind-blowing and dwarfs their previous studio efforts (not to mention any effort they would make in the future).
DRep was the fastest hardcore record released in its time frame (yes, i'm aware of The Neos, Siege, Koro, Negative FX, Mob47 and anything you could throw at me) but DEALING WITH IT is angrier, tighter, and just plain better...plus, you can see that they've finally learned how to play. They kept it short, sweet, and used the heavy shreds as a garnish rather then a main ingredient (which they should have kept doing).
When I think of THRASH, I think of this record before I think of the crossover acts of the mid/late 80s (dri included) and before I think of the classics that paved the way. DRI is the flagship thrash unit and DEALING WITH IT is the best record of the genre.
easily in the top ten greatest hardcore records ever released.
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