Metal Mind Productions present re-release of “Product Of Society†– the debut album by Defiance. This thrash metal band formed in 1985 by Brad Bowers (guitar), Mike Kaufmann (bass) and Matt Vander Ende (drums) belonged to the San Francisco thrash fraternity of the late 80’s, along with bands like Testament, Exodus or Forbidden. “Product Of Society†was produced by Annihilator’s guitarist Jeff Waters and managed to attract attention in the thrash community despite the frequent label as a Testament knock-off. It was the only album by Defiance to feature Ken Elkington on vocals and had cover art by Ed Repka.
This classic LP taken from Roadrunner Records’ archives will be available in a new digipak edition with 5 demo and 3 live tracks as a bonus. Limited to 2000 copies, digitally remastered using 24-Bit process on golden disc. “Product Of Society†will be available on 21st July 2008 in Europe and 2nd September 2008 in USA (via MVD).
Defiance
“Product Of Society†(remastered + bonus tracks)
Label: Metal Mind Records
Cat. No.: MASS CD 1031 DG
Barcode: 5907785029965
Format: CD Digipak (limited edition of 2000 numerated copies)
Genre: thrash metal
Release date: 21.07.2008 Europe / 02.09.2008 USA
Tracklist:
1. The Fault
2. Death Machine
3. Product of Society
4. Forgotten
5. Lock Jaw
6. Insomnia
7. Deadly Intentions
8. Aftermath
9. Tribulation
10. Hypothermia
Bonus tracks:
11. Hypothermia (demo)
12. Aftermath (demo)
13. Deadly Intentions (demo)
14. MIA (Forgotten) (demo)
15. Product of Society (demo)
16. Riff Raff (live)
17. Matt’s drum solo (live)
18. Checkmate into Skits – Illusions (live)
Bio
Defiance – thrash metal band formed in 1985 by Brad Bowers (guitar), Mike Kaufmann (bass) and Matt Vander Ende (drums) belonged to the San Francisco thrash fraternity of the late 80’s, along with bands like Testament, Exodus or Forbidden. Their second demo “Hypothermia” caught the attention of Roadrunner Records who signed the band in the Summer of 1988. Defiance then traveled to Vancouver Canada to record their first album with Jeff Waters of Annihilator as producer. 1989 saw the release of their debut album “Product of Society” and another change in line-up – Elkinton was replaced by Steev Esquivel. In 1990 they released their second album “Void Terra Firma” which was recorded at Prairie Sun Recording Studios in Cotati, CA with John Cuniberti doing the production duties. Two years later in 1992 came the band’s finest work to date, “Beyond Recognition”. This album was recorded at Bayview Studios in Richmond, CA and was produced by Rob Beaton. This would turn out to be their last. Adams and Van der Ende immediately took their leave from Defiance and were therefore superseded by guitarist Brian Wenzel and drummer Mike Bennett. Wenzel and Bennett not only joined the band Defiance in 1993, they also *left* the band within months of joining. Jim Adams returned to replace the ousted Wenzel and Mike Bennett left on his own a few months later. Bennett was replaced by Tyson Leeper on drums. Defiance continued to write new material and did several local shows with this line up before Steev Esquivel left the band in late 1993. During the search for a replacement, Tyson also left Defiance. Steev was replaced by Dave Godfrey White (Heathen) and the next drummer to join the ranks of Defiance was Paul Bloemink. After doing a few shows and recording a demo with Rob Beaton (Defiance, Heathen) producing, the decision was made to replace Paul with Hugo Barrientos on drums. It was at this time, the band decided that the new material sounded nothing like the Defiance that had recorded the first three albums, and made the move to change their name to Inner Threshold. Inner Threshold continued to record and play shows until 1995, when Adams and White exited and were replaced by Chris Long on vocals and guitar. The band then changed their name again to Under. Under played shows and recorded numerous demos until finally calling it quits in 1999.
Defiance regrouped in 2005 with four of the original members. With the addition of new drummer, James ‘Flatline’ Raymond in the summer of 2005, the group had began to work towards completing a new four song EP. In March of 2006, Defiance signed with Corporate Punishment Records. They are currently working towards completing a full length CD and DVD, with the addition of Mark Hernandez on drums, replacing James Raymond.
In 2007 Metal Mind Productions released a box entitled “Insomnia†containing 3 albums deleted for almost 10 years. All albums included bonus tracks plus lyrics to all songs. The box also included 28 page booklet with a story about the band. Special 3 CD digipack edition was limited to 2000 numerated copies.