The Noise Years is a three-disc CD bringing together the first three albums (and related tracks) from genre-shifting San Francisco based Mordred. The band morphed from Bay Area Thrash, to turntable edged funk metal, onto more general genre-mixing experimental metal. The albums featured here all appeared on German metal label Noise records- and take in 1989’s Fool’s Game, 1991’s In This Life, and 1994’s The Next Room.

The release appears on Dissonance Productions, which is Cherry Reds metal reissue focused sub-label. The three CD’s come presented in sturdy eight-panel digipak, with underneath each disc the original albums cover artwork. Also featured is a sixteen-page booklet- this takes in a ten-page write-up about the band and these albums by Dave Everley, plus a good selection of band photos/ poster/ album artwork. So, a nicely presented package.

The band started brewing in the year 1984, when San Francisco high school buddies Art Libon (Bass) and James Sanguinetti(guitars) started jamming together creating a more formal mix of traditional metal, Thrash and Death Metal. Vocalist Scott Holderby joined in 1986, as did second guitarists Danny White. With by 1989 the line-up filling out with Aaron Vaughn (keyboards, turntables)- with a fairly shifting stream of drummers coming through the band.

The band's first album was 1989’s Fool’s Game, and this was a ten-track affair. The sound was largely focused on bay area Thrash- though there were a few surprises, and two sudden genre turns. The album kicks off with “State of Mind” here we find meaty 'n' chugging riff craft, bounding drums, weaving leads and Holderby’s vocals which have a rather Mark Osegueda (Death Angel)  quality to them, though with maybe slightly more expressive soulful edge. The third track and albums single “Everyday’ s A Holiday” was the first surprising genre turn- as basically it’s a blend of funk metal, turntable scratching, and bouncing buoyant vocals- with the moments of Thrash chugg, wailing metal soloing, and slap bass. As we go through the rest of the record, we have speeding gallop-meets- gang vocal chorus of “Sever and Splice”, with hard-hit drums, and subtle slap bass runs. There’s the chugging riffing and slamming percussion of “Shatter” which features a great swirling ‘n’ spiralling lead break down. Another surprise comes in the bands cover of Rick James "Super Freak", with its blend of marching riff metal, scratching, and bendy wailing vocals. With the album been topped off by the scrambling slap bass and meaty thrash riff craft of “Numb” which features a more traditional galloping and soling metal centre. On the whole Fool’s Game is a good, at times decidedly daring debut record- showing the band could write both good Thrash craft, as well as make sudden and surprising genre turns. On this CD we just get the ten tracks from the original album and no bonus.
 
Moving onto disc number two and we have 1991’s In This Life and its related tracks. And this really saw the band in full metal genre-blending form- mixing and melding funk metal, Thrash, traditional metal and rock tropes, lots of turntabling, and bouncing buoyant-stretchy vocals which at points go very close to those of Mike Patton in his FNM heyday. The album kicks off with “In This Life” which opens with wailing metallic soloing, before dropping into slap bass and chugging riff, topped with rapid almost rap-like vocals, with the track having quite a Suicidal Tendencies feel to it. As we move through the album we come to war-hungry radio samples, heavy scratching, and darting funk metal of “Widow” with gang vocals and Thrash riffs coming in here and there.  We have the wailing emotional funk-rock meets up-front scratch sample of “Get on Down”, which gives me rather vibes of the FNM track "The Real Thing". There’s ska metal strut of “Downtown” which features very Patton like wailing ‘n’ bending vocals. With the album playing out with the very active scratching meets darting Thrash funk of “Larger Than Life”. All in all, In This Life is a very daring follow-up, which I’m sure would have alienated many of the pure Thrash crowd. The CD takes in four bonus tracks- which are a blend of studio and live recordings.
 

Lastly, on disc number three, we have 1994’s The Next Room, and here we find new vocalist Paul Kimball- who has a more traditional rock and metal voice. The album is still blending and blurring genres, though there is a more rock to metal focus here- with much of the Thrash tones being ironed out. We go from the bounding drums meets spiralling scratch trails of “Skid” which has a sort of doomed-yet-groovy riff at its centre. There’s the rising-to rolling grunge ballad of “Splintered Down”. We have the sampled horn Strutt, sax wails, and rapped vocals of “Shut” with its rocked-up chorus. There’s the funk metal galloping forlornness meets thick scratching tones of “The Trellis”, or the bounding metal-meets grunge wailing of “Rubber Crutch” which from time to time has funk metal hints. It’s certainly another genre-blending metallic album, though I was less keen on the grunge elements. The CD is topped off with the four tracks from 1992’s Visions- and these fall more towards the funk metal FNM- like elements of In This Life album, though there were also a few more moody-metallic genre blend tracks too.
 
It’s great to have these Mordred albums in one place- and they were most certainly a daring and inventive metal band, who managed to blend ‘n’ blur genres. Sure, at times they readily mimic certainly other band tropes, but they had enough original/ rewarding touches to make it most worthwhile to checking out this three-album set.