Friendly as a Hand Grenade

The core members of Tackhead — guitarist Skip McDonald, bassist Doug Wimbish, and drummer Keith LeBlanc — had already made musical history as the backing band for the Sugarhill Gang when they hooked up with On-U Sound label head Adrian Sherwood. He enlisted them to back up vocalists Gary Clail and Mark Stewart, and then released this album under the Tackhead name in 1989. The sound is exactly what you’d expect if you know their history: sharp and tensile funk with an industrial edge, lots of dubwise effects, and sharp social commentary.