Released by: Metallic Blue Records/Rewind/Song Haus Music
Genre: Hard Rock
Links: https://www.metallicbluerecords.com/
Line Up:
Tracy Swider – Guitar
Dana Freebairn – Vocals
Todd Lane – Drums
Steve Giles – Bass
Jamie Christensen – Guitar
Tracklist:
Loser Takes All
Passion
Trash King
Streets Of Rage
Love And Money
Starting Over
From The Inside
Leper’s Day
Sea Of Faith
Freedom
Around 1993-1994 I started a little fanzine called STRUTTER´ZINE, which was focused on mostly independent North American Hardrock/AOR/Glamrockbands, and during those early years I received countless beautiful press maps/info and cassette tapes/CDs in order to review those small town bands. Somehow I must have missed a lot, because back then there was a huge scene in the USA, and it was in those pre-internet days hard to keep up. A lot of bands were sorta mixing the 80s hard rock riffs and melodies with the newly American modern rocksound from Seattle (ALICE IN CHAINS being the most important influence), and that resulted in the 90s independent American Hardrocksound that so many bands adopted during the mid 90s.
D.F.M. was one of those bands that recorded material those days, but never released anything official and eventually they broke up in 1994. The band mixed late 80s/early 90s American melodic hair metal melodies (SKID ROW/WARRANT) with some groovy and funky rhythms (EXTREME, EVERY MOTHER’S NIGHTMARE) and also added ALICE IN CHAINS influences to match the sound that was popular around those days in America. The result was a great sound with strong vocals and melodies, and now almost 30 years later 10 of their songs have finally made it onto an official CD release called Streets Of Rage on the METALLIC BLUE RECORDS label. D.F.M. was originally formed in the early 90’s, and had several songs featured in movies like Showdown and Double Dragon. The band was formed around Tracy Swider on Lead Guitars, Dana Freebairn on vocals, Adam Shore on bass and backing vocals, Todd Lane on drums, and Jamie Christensen on guitar. Although I mentioned 10 songs are included, 4 of them are actually new tunes, because they were recorded in 2022, while the first 6 songs were recorded in 1993. Musically speaking actually there’s no real big changes, and from start to finish this is prime time high quality groovy heavy melodic hardrock with a proggy and alternative metal influence here and there.
Songs like Passion, Trash King, Sea Of Faith and especially the superb semi-ballad Starting Over are a joy to listen to and show that D.F.M. could have easily been signed to a major label if they had come around the corner just a few years earlier when SKID ROW, WARRANT, TESLA and such had their records out on major labels.
Written by: Gabor Kleinbloesem
Ratings: Gabor 8/10
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