Decay

If we had brains…we’d be dangerous

My personal favorite Minnesota metal band.  Impaler.  I first discovered these guys from my friends in Death Squad.  Impaler & Death Squad were both from the St. Paul area (like myself) and backyard keg party’s and metal just seem to go together….so it’s fitting that the first place I was Impaler play was in my friend Dave Benson’s garage.  Not your Slayer/Metallica speed metal, but more of a hard rock/metal with a whole lot of blood and guts thrown in.  They call it "Shock Rock" and I’d have to agree.  The influence of cheap b-movie horror flicks on these guys can not be overstated.

Impaler put out an EP on the pre-Combat Records label IRD.  Then the Combat full length LP (both later released  on a single CD).  They would continue right up to today releasing albums themselves of on smaller labels and with each passing year seem to add more and more gore to the stage shows.

So why am I posting metal here?  Because, thanks in large part to Impaler, metal & punk have always been to very complementry to each other.  In other cities you might have punks and metalheads fighting…not so here.  Impaler used to have punk bands open for them.  Their first full length album was produced by Bob Mould (and is highly saught after by die-hard Hüsker Dü fans).

Get the LP here .

Impaler’s Website & MySpace page

Some Early Demos were posted on the "True Punk & Metal " blog by former guitarist/roadie Johnny Stradinger that are well worth downloading.  Head over and get the LP, and read all the comments posted.  I re-posted it here, because it’s easy to miss in the comments section:

stradinger said…

I left the comment before about us still being around,but felt the need to say more.. I was a roadie from day one and guitarist on Wake Up Screaming.. Impaler was influenced by old school punk and metal, glam rock, pro wrestling and horror movies. Lead singer Bill Lindsey tried to incorporate all of these into his music. We got lumped in with all the other thrash metal bands, but had more in common with the punks than with the headbangers. But then again, stuck in the middle , we were either fags or posers…
Anyway, Bill is still around playing.
Here is a post I left at guitars 101, if anyone wants some demos and a live show from way back, this is the 1st 2 demos and a rare live show from 1983. At this time the band had Mike Senn as 2nd guitarist, it contains unreleased and early versions of songs that would later be on Rise of the Mutants, If We Had Brains, and Wake Up Screaming. This is the best versions you will get. I was the only one from the band who kept copies of the early stuff.

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=MFL822U8

Impaler – (US)Demo #1 1983
1. Impaler
2. Assassin
3. City in Chains
4. Witchqueen
5. Island of the Damned
(US)Demo #2 1983
6. Vicious Dreams
7. Heavens Force
8. Shock Rock
Goofy’s Upper Deck Mpls, Mn 8/21/83 (SB)
9. Intro Set #1 / City in Chains
10. Assassin
11. Hit With An Axe
12. Shock Rock
13. Crack That Whip
14. Intro set #2 / Impaler
15. Go Back to Hell
16. Island of the Damned
17. Witchqueen
18. Poison
19. Heavens Force