Dual Edge
Knock ‘Em Alive
1987 Intense Records (IR4485)
Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA
Scott Turner – Lead vocals
Rick Wald – Guitars, backing vocals
John Avery – Bass, Backing vocals
Terry Steinmeyer – Drums, backing vocals
Side 1:
- Life Him Up
- Fight for the Light
- Be With You
- New Life
Side 2:
- Knock ‘Em Alive
- Take It to the Bank
- The Light
- Follow Your Dreams
This tape was the first release by Intense Records, released only on tape and vinyl. It kind of rides the line between demo and full label release, as it was actually the band’s independent demo re-released with one track dropped. Also, technically Intense Records started off as a pretty indie label like many of the other “labels” covered here. The major difference being that the layout of the j-card gives the impression they were trying to start a full national label – where as others seemed content to be indie. The production on this tape is rough – I have heard the vinyl sounds better. I read that this is somehow a “re-mixed” version of their demo. Not sure there was any mixing at all on this. It is still listen-able… just rough. The sound on this release is pretty straight-ahead commercial metal from the late 80s, leaning towards hair metal. The songs show a lot of promise, but there are also many rough edges in the song writing and performances as well. If they had been given a chance to record a second album with better production and mixing, they could have had a bigger impact. It also doesn’t seem like most of the members of the band did anything else after this – it’s like the band just vanished. The one exception is Terry Steinmeyer – he re-surfaced in 1994 in a folk rock band called Pegtop that put out several CDs.
Christian Tape Underground 