by Dave Thompson
Close to two years on from the decidedly lackluster No Need to Panic, Stoke-on-Trent's favorite Mohicans returned in summer 1989 with the brilliantly titled and ferociously breakneck A Fridge Too Far. Clearly influenced by the band's burgeoning success in the United States, where audiences rapturously applauded their drift toward hardcore speed metal, A Fridge Too Far opens as it means to go on, with the call-and-response rage of &Pass the Axe,& and then blazes on from there. It's a very different sound to that which brought G.B.H. to fame in the first place -- anyone who jumped aboard for City Baby Attacked by Rats will find little to grasp onto here. But there's a seamless transition at work all the same, a sense that the early records' metal-punk hybrid is finally approaching fruition, and doing so from a decidedly more melodic stance than most bands. Plus, tracks like &Go Home& and &The Fist of Regret& retain enough of the band's original street punk credentials (plus some savage use of stereo) to prove that G.B.H. are still firing on the same targets they always specialized in.