Casting the illadvised attempts at tooclean modern rock from his late’80s days firmly aside and fulfilling the promise of Skellington and Droolian, Cope on Peggy Suicide produced his best album to date, overtopping even his Teardrop Explodes efforts. Showing a greater musical breadth and range than ever before, from funk to noise collage and more importantly, not sounding like a dilettante at any step of the way Cope and his now seasoned backing band, with drummer J.D. Hassinger in and De Harrison out, surge from strength to strength. Ostensibly conceived as a concept album regarding potential ecological and social collapse, Cope wisely seeks to set moods rather than create a straitjacketed story line. As a result, Peggy suicide can be enjoyed both as an overall statement and as a collection of individual songs; its sequencing is excellent to boot, moving from song to song as if it was always meant to be that way. Cope’s voice is a revelation for those not having heard the hardtofind Skellington and Droolian, his conversational asides, bold but not fullofitself singing, and equally tender, softer takes when the material demands it must have seemed like a complete turnaround from the restrained My Nation Underground cuts. He handles all the guitar as well, with Skinner concentrating on bass and keyboards; guest Michael “MoonEye” Watts does some fine fretbending as well, including an amazing performance on the awesome “Safesurfer,” a lengthy meditation on AIDS and its consequences. Picking out only some highlights does the album as a whole a disservice, but besides offering up an instant catchy pop single, “Beautiful Love,” Cope handles everything from the minimal moods of “Promised Land” and experimentation of “Western Front 1992 CE” to the frenetic “Hanging Out and Hung Up on the Line” and commanding “Drive, She Said.” An absolute, stonecold rock classic, full stop.
- Ned Raggett, All Music Guide
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Nailbomb’s Proud to Commit Commercial Suicide fulfills the promise of its title. Filled with ugly, raw noises, the record is an endurance test for some listeners, sheer bliss for others. The band distills the dirtiest elements of industrial, metal and grunge, creating a scathing, blistering grind. Fans of balls-out, no-holds-barred metal will love it but listerners fond of melody will find it rather tedious.
- Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Music Guide
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Zero Hour compiles live performances suicide gave in New York City and Berlin in the late ’70s and early ’80s. Although these live takes aren’t drastically different from the studio versions, the icy intensity of the music makes Zero Hour a must-hear for dedicated Suicide fans.
- Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Music Guide
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![Suicide [Second Album]](http://abrokenlife.com/wpshopping/uploads/1921384782.jpeg)
Confusingly released in 1980 as Alan Vega/Martin Rev: suicide, Mute reissued Suicide’s second album as The Second Album in 2000. The reissue adds the “Dream Baby Dream” single, as well as a second disc of Vega and Rev’s first rehearsal tapes. The Ric Ocasek-produced Second Album is less confrontational and more contemporary than the duo’s terrifying debut. Vega’s rockabilly snarl and Rev’s burbling electronics remain, but Ocasek’s involvement purges a pop sensibility only hinted at on Suicide. Hell, some of the tracks are downright pretty (”Shadazz,” “Diamonds, Fur Coat, Champagne”). Perhaps it’s not as renegade as Suicide, but it’s an arguably better, more realized work, and just as essential. Three of the tracks found on the first rehearsal tapes disc were previously issued on ROIR’s Half Alive in 1981. The rehearsals are extremely spatial and equally creepy as the proper studio works. Most of the tracks lurch by at a mid-tempo pace; Vega’s distorted vocalisms are rather restrained but highly sinister, and Rev’s sonic wizardry is delightfully horrific.
- Andy Kellman, All Music Guide
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![Suicide File [EP]](http://abrokenlife.com/wpshopping/uploads/1921652780.jpeg)
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Is American Supreme — the first suicide album in a decade — an update, a return to form? Yes and no. Those who hang on Alan Vega’s every streetwise grunt and growl will doubtlessly be pleased as punch with the results, as will anyone who hasn’t heard any music that has been recorded since 1990. Perhaps the strangest twist about this record is how much of it sounds more crude and antiquated than the duo’s first two albums, which were released over 20 years prior to this one. Those two albums did what few groups had done prior, and this one recycles hip-hop and dance beats that were recycled many times over by the mid-’90s. The opening “Television Executions” is the worst culprit, using turntable scratches and a bounding late-’80s funk groove that the Red Hot Chili Peppers would scoff at. It would be expecting far too much for Vega and Martin Rev to deliver something as revolutionary as those first two albums. A more realistic hope would be for this album to not be an embarrassment. Thankfully, due to Vega’s sharp-as-ever observations (he still sounds ornery and underfed), they narrowly escape that pitfall.
- Andy Kellman, All Music Guide
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First views of suicide Party’s twisted kiddy cartoons and obvious song titles might have some people charging Fort Lauderdale’s Bishop of putting too much emphasis on their blackhumored, often silly lyrics, in place of the music itself. But that’s maybe just as well since hardcore’s innate sonic limitations pretty much require a band have something to say be it serious, comical, whatever. Bishop sure try, and whether it’s antibad habit harangues like “Wreck,” “Ingest,” and “(Life is One Big) Suicide Party,” accusatory tirades such as “Old Habits,” “Throwaway,” and “Next Big Thing” (featuring the rather clever line “You never cared about a fking thing but being seen and being scene”), or droll ditties like “Eat St” and the selfexplanatory, foursecondlong “Go Fk Yourself,” said amusing touches definitely help to offset the excessive preaching inspired by their straightedge mentality. In fact, for a band that claims to have formed for sheer fun, Bishop spend a lot of energy getting on people’s cases, and since they also don’t ultimately come up with a single original sounding piece of music during this entire halfhour debut, words are really all they got that and the mindless adrenaline rush of the mosh pit. Average in every sense of the word.
- Eduardo Rivadavia, All Music Guide
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