RBOTD #203: Lunattick Fringe
D.O.P.E.
https://www.metal-archives.com/bands/Lunattick_Fringe/41222
Country: United States
Location: Stratford, Connecticut
Genre: thrash metal
Formed in: 1987
Status: Split-up
By the Numbers
Lunattick Fringe is the:
18th band formed in the 1980s
44th band from the United States
67th band that has split-up
Its genre tags have been seen:
Thrash: 40 times
Member Connections
M.S.W., a thrash band from Stratford, Connecticut
World Gone Mad, a groove band from Milford, Connecticut
Know 'Em?
Nope. I am now 10/203.
Sketch Check
Pass.
RateYourMusic Scores
Lunattick Fringe has not been rated.
Adjusted scores are calculated similarly to the Trad Belt scoring system. Please read that column for more information.
Trifecta Tracker
Lunattick Fringe did not achieve the trifecta.
A band can achieve the trifecta by titling a song after itself on a self-titled release. Iron Maiden's "Iron Maiden" on 1980's Iron Maiden is an example of the trifecta.
Guess I should've saved the thrash breakdown. Welp, let's dive in. Lunattick Fringe has all of the hallmarks of an '80s thrash demo band. Intentionally misspelled name? Check. Sloppy logo that barely fits on a tape's insert? Check. Not-all-the-way-baked sound that hints at the promise of a Dark Angel disciple but generally lacks a standout moment that sticks in your head? Check. A grainy band photo that could've been taken yesterday, except one of the members looks like Skip Spence saw a ghost?
...check? I guess that's not really a hallmark.
Anyway, Stratford, Connecticut's Lunattick Fringe, folks. This band was a bandalone until 1990 when it merged with Stratford's other active thrash entity, M.S.W. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem like anything from that era of Lunattick Fringe is available to be streamed, which is a shame. The final M.S.W. demo, 1989's Hostage of Terror, sounds quite a bit more realized than Lunattick Fringe's 1988 demo debut, even sinking a few Testament-y hooks into your brain meat.
Lunattick Fringe was dunzo by 1993. Two of its members ended up in World Gone Mad, a groove metal band that released Destruction of Planet Earth in 1997. The album art is incredible. Maybe if we rebrand "climate change" as "DOPE," it'll finally convince conservatives that it's a threat.
Sadly, the music sounds like Cowboys From Hell-era Pantera was infiltrated by Jackyl. Incredible that metal of this ilk was still walking the lands in 1997. It's like if Littlefoot was clomping around in the background of Tomorrow Never Dies or something.
World Gone Mad got DOPE'd in 2000, which naturally led to the...reactivation of M.S.W. in 2011? Indeed. If Encyclopaedia Metallum notes are facts, M.S.W. is still active.
That's pretty much a wrap, but I'd like to run down two of Lunattick Fringe's similar artists real quick. The first is Black Wÿtche, an earlier Connecticut thrasher that released two demos in 1986 that sound very 1983. Per Metallum, it was interviewed in Over the Top #4. Thanks to the Corroseum's zine archival work, you can read that here.
After Black Wÿtche ended, it spun off a ton of projects. The most interesting to me is Radium, a proggy heavy metal band that riffs a surprisingly decent riff and probably could've done something if it found a producer who cared.
One of Black Wÿtche's members, Ron Vanacore, is doing the metals in Curse the Son, a stoner/doom band signed to Ripple Music.
The other Lunattick Fringe similar artist worth exploring is Sons of Sawyer, a reasonably unknown death/thrash/crossover combo that released one demo, Freshly Severed Head, in 1989. It tagged itself as "Grade A Meat, USDA Deathcore." The first song is worth a spin. It's as if Scream Bloody Gore-era Death had a DRI side. The rest is...ridiculous, but hey, the '80s. So what happened to the band? Gregory C. Blackinton, its singer and guitarist, became Bristol's K9 police officer. Blackinton died in 2019. Here's the obit that namechecks Sons of Sawyer.
I don't want to end on that bummer, so: How about the early '80s Connecticut heavy metal scene, huh? Besides your heavy hitters like Fates Warning, Sacred Oath, and Liege Lord, you have your fascinating unknowns like Legend. I kind of love these pockets of hidden heavy metal history, that Black Wÿtche, M.S.W., and Lunattick Fringe were rubbing shoulders with Fates Warning and...yep...Thrash Queen of Manslayer fame, whose name would appear on one of the more infamous Metal Enterprises fake albums, Ashes to Ashes.
But that's a story for another time. Have a good weekend!
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