D.R.I. hasn't reared their heads on record since 1995's Full Speed Ahead, a duration which vastly exceeds the length of the band's recorded history to begin with. Fellow Texans Dead Horse (sometimes stylized deadhorse) have been stingy with new material for roughly the same amount of time, dating back to 1996's BOIL (ing). With band members from both acts having splintered to various cities, rather than recruit new full time members it only made sense for the two bands to combine their strengths: Pasadena Napalm Division was born.
For a band that is essentially Kurt Brecht (D.R.I.) fronting Dead Horse, PND sound a lot more like crossover legends Dirty Rotten Imbeciles than the experimental, pseudo-death experimenation of Dead Horse. Odd thing about that is that this apparently consists of material that Dead Horse were working on under that project name but, lacking a singer, they heard Kurt was in town and dropped him a line (Pasadena refers to a suburb of Houston perhaps best known as the location of Gilley's, the real life bar featured in the 1980 flick Urban Cowboy… but during 'Nam it was the setting of Dow Chemical's US napalm plant).
It's entirely possible that material was more or less scrapped and that the newly formed Pasadena Napalm Division merely started from scratch; there's definitely a tossed off, piss take quality to songs like "100 Beers With a Zombie" and in particular "Spell It Out", the latter a straight up novelty song that literally just spells out every last one of its lyrics.
Of course, D.R.I. always mixed sophomoric humor with earnest political statement, and there's a bit of that here too: "Terror Cell" takes on the topic-of-the-moment, basically berating the obvious dual-fault arguments without adding anything new, but the vintage thrash underlying the lyrics is some of the most potent on the album. "Dreamland" is kind of a corny fantasy version of a utopian thrash scene, kind of a metal version of Ice Cube's "It Was a Good Day" with lowered expectations.
As a whole the album is pleasing enough, but frankly not enough really sticks to the ribs. Pasadena Napalm Division will satisfy fans who have been jonesing to hear Kurt Brecht sing some new crossover thrash for the first time in nearly two decades, but one would hope that the band come up with something a little more lasting on offer next time around.
7/10
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I78-lqjNoVg[/youtube]
