Tech9
Last Line of Defense
Too Damn Hype
What to say about this record… I think I would have liked this better if I were still 14, or if I were still a 30-year-old skinhead wearing a leather jacket and way too-tight jeans. This sounds like an Oi! band without the Oi!. Everything else is here: gravely vocals, boring chord progressions played through big Marshall amps, stupid lyrics (“truth is always very hard to find” – DUH!), dumb drumming (replete with the annoying ride cymbal), and chanted group choruses (“Dead On Arrival”).
One thing this record does have going for it is a kick-ass back cover, with this really cool skull, which looks like it’s a part of a sword. Usually anything with skulls on it is going to be at least kind of good, but Tech9 are just so generic, it appears that a skull has been wasted on these guys.
The self parody that is Last Line of Defense is that this is supposed to be threatening music. It’s supposed to make me say, “Wow! Those guys are brutal and sound tough, like Fear;” but I don’t, and I can’t, because this isn’t intimidating at all. It’s pretty hilarious, especially the lyrics… “You’ll always be our friend, like a rose tattoo forever heaven sent.”
