*** Suicidal Tendencies

FREEDUMB

(Side One Dummy/Suicidal Records)

"We're Hippie Killers! We're Hippie Killers!", Suicidal Tendencies vocalist Mike Muir seethes on the outro to "Hippy Killer." Behind him the Suicidal posse nail the patented thrashy break, their calling card since the now classic hardcore/metal hit "Institutionalized." It's 1999, but on the band's latest, Freedumb, it might as well still be 1983, only with a slightly more sophisticated and less cheesy guitar tone than was their style back then. There's an overdriven warmth to these songs -- the kind of crackly charm you found between the grooves of Black Flag and Circle Jerks singles -- but Freedumb isn't an exercise in comfy nostalgia. The funk is fresh in the jackhammer bass slaps on "Scream Out" and the venomous wah-wah drips on "Half Way Up My Head." The thrash is unbridled and free of mature musician's machismo on "Cyco Vision" and "We Are Family." And the heavy-but-lilting, Hendrix-meets-Santana ballad "Heaven" proves that Suicidal Tendencies are good for more than just raging against hippies.

-- Lorne Behrman