Last Crack
An unfairly forgotten / overlooked band.
Heavy music fans surely know of bands like Metallica, Dream Theater, Opeth, and Ghost, to name a few.
Some of the bands mentioned above, and many others for sure, seem to be a kind of “media darlings“. Whatever they release (with varying degrees of quality), will surely be included on those famed End of the Year Best Releases lists.
Many other bands limit themselves to releasing similar albums throughout their career. Bands like AC/DC, Motorhead, and Iron Maiden come to mind.
Well, I would never appreciate it if AC/DC started playing funk or disco tracks, would you?
That terrifying prospect notwithstanding, many bands that don’t limit themselves to playing a single style. Bands like Faith No More, meld various genres, within one album, often within the confines of the same song.
This creative restlessness can be exhilarating for some listeners but can be unmotivating for a grand majority of metal fans. They tend to be very picky. Don’t you think?
Bands like Fishbone, Tackhead, and Living Colour tend to inhabit the fringes of the hard rock/metal realm. And be shamefully relegated to a cult status, which more often than not, doesn’t give them the financial support needed, for projects to sustain themselves.
One such band is Milwaukes’s very own Last Crack.
They were signed to Roadrunner Records and released two albums, Sinister Funkhouse #17 from 1989 and Burning Time from 1991.
The music is a merger of Alice in Chains brooding heaviness, with King’s X experimental incursions and Faith no More’s experimental flair.
They can be as heavy as any other band, but never sacrifice the melody and the compositional flair.
After that 1991 release, the band broke up due to a shifting musical climate, public indifference, and internal struggles.
They have since reformed and released the album The Up Rising in 2019, and for what limited information I could gather, they are still active.
Although their latest release is not up to par with their first two albums, they're still perfectly capable of composing a great batch of songs.
