Biohazard
Reborn in Defiance
(Nuclear Blast)
B

Review By Brian Baker

 
Who says guys don’t like soap operas? Biohazard’s long-running story line comes front-loaded with its own hyper punk/metal soundtrack and features elements that would sound fictional if they weren’t true. Launched in Brooklyn a quarter century ago, Biohazard was tagged as a fascist band (even though half the group was Jewish), had to be snuck into clubs to play because promoters wouldn’t book it due to violence concerns and saw its first barely publicized album bomb and its sophomore album, Urban Discipline, notch platinum numbers. Generally credited with being among the first hardcore/metal bands to introduce hip-hop into the mix, Biohazard has rotated members for reasons both banal and dramatic – it broke up in 2006 and reformed in 2008 – but the core line-up of Billy Graziadei, Danny Schuler and Bobby Hambel has remained relatively intact, even through various side projects and periodic breaks. Evan Seinfeld has provided the most colorful copy, pursuing an acting career both legit (Oz) and not so much (porn), while playing for a variety of outside groups.

Biohazard’s original line-up reformed and began playing shows in 2008 and working on the new material that would become Reborn in Defiance, but before its release, Seinfeld once again broke ranks, leaving his band mates to audition new singers. Reborn in Defiance finds Biohazard returning to the classic hardcore/metal stance of its early work, continuing the direction of 2003’s Kill or Be Killed and 2005’s Means to an End. “Vengeance is Mine” is indicative of the whole; buzzsaw guitars from Graziadei and Hambel, double clutched hammer-and-tong drumming from Schuler and my-fist-your-face vocal shredding and pummeling bass from the now absent Seinfeld. The good news is that Seinfeld is not so indelibly unique in his role as to be irreplaceable, but it would have been nice to see him on at least one tour of this new material that hearkens back to Biohazard’s glory days.