Artist: ATROPHY
Album: SOCIALIZED HATE RE-RELEASE (DIGI)

Year: 1988/ 2006
Media type: CD

Atrophy are an intelligent metal band whose music glimpses sides of life not usually touched upon in the metal world. Their debut album “Socialized Hate” dealt with serious issues such as war, drugs, racism, and the environment, and did it with a lethal combination of stinging lyrics and balls-to-the-wall musicianship. With their Roadrunner release, “Violent By Nature”, they take their evolution further on up the road, as they display technically, and broaden their lyrical horizons to include such concepts as the aggressive stereotyping of children, product testing on animals, the right that the dying have to a dignified death through euthanasia, and many other topics that people face every day in life, but rarely in music.

“Violent By Nature” was produced by Bill Metoyer, (Slayer, D.R.I., and Flotsam and Jetsam), who also worked the boards on the first album, and it contains tracks that co-founder Chris Lykins feels contain some unique differences from the average metal tunes. “In our songs, both lyrics and the music are treated equally. Sure the music is important, and we make it as tight and exciting as we can, but we give the lyrics equal billing as well. We like to bring speed metal to a higher level, and by paying attention to all sides of a song, I feel that we accomplish that.”

Emphasizing their intellectual bent is the fact that the band was formed at the University Of Arizona, where Chris Lykins and Brian Zimmerman agreed to form a band while conducting endurance experiment on a lizard. Despite the less than flourishing scene in their hometown of Tucson, Brian and Chris kept the band together with a revolving door roster until April of 1987, when the rest of the current line-up solidified itself, and the band rushed into the studio to record a six track demo called “Chemical Dependency”.

The response from underground was nothing short of spectacular, as fanzines world wide sung Atrophy’s praises, and both Kerrang and Metal Forces placed the demo on their year-end Top Ten list. In fact, Metal Forces liked them so much that they put two of the demo tracks on Metal Forces “Scream Your Brains Out” sampler album. Roadrunner Records caught the buzz, and signed the band in June of 1988.

Atrophy started recording “Socialized Hate” in June. The album was eaten up by the metal community, as Kerrang called it “a great album by a band with a big future”, and Faces said that the LP was “a totally homicidal dish to set before the masses.” Metal radio also absorbed Atrophy, as the metal radio charts had the album in their Top 20.

TRACKLIST:

1. Chemical Dependency
2. Killing Machine
3. Matter of Attitude
4. Preacher, Preacher
5. Beer Bong
6. Socialized Hate
7. Best Defense
8. Product of the Past
9. Rest in Pieces
10. Urban Decay

Bonus tracks:
11. Chemical Dependency - Demo track
12. Rest in Pieces - Demo track
13. Preacher, Preacher - Demo track

14. Socialized Hate - Bonus bootleg video