Bad Brains – I & I Survived (Dub) + Metal Fingers – Special Herbs Vol. 2 / Nocturne 2x Audio CD 2002 / NTCD 1937-NT98

UPC 0826596019376

I & I Survived is the seventh full-length studio album by hardcore punk band Bad Brains.

This album inverts the emphasis of Bad Brains' previous albums, which stress their punk/metal/hard rock side alongside touches of reggae. In contrast, I & I Survived is a mostly instrumental offering emphasizing reggae, ska, and dub elements (including a horn section on several songs) with only occasional forays into hard rock and punk music. The voice of band vocalist H.R. does appear on the album, albeit in sampled form from previous albums.

The album includes new songs alongside completely revamped remakes of a few Bad Brains classics such as 1983's "How Low Can a Punk Get?", two versions of the Quickness classic "Gene Machine", and a dancehall reggae version of the usually mellow "I & I Survive".

Critic Todd Kristel of Allmusic.com gave the album 3-out-of-5 stars, describing it as "a solid effort even if it doesn't break a lot of new ground".

Special Herbs, Vol. 2 is the second album in the Special Herbs series of instrumental works released by Daniel Dumile under the Metal Fingers moniker. As with the previous volume, each track is named after a herb or similar flora, with the possibly ironic exceptions of mass-produced food additives monosodium glutamate and Red #40.

The album's title is slightly misleading, in that it is not an entirely new volume: the first installment in the Metal Fingers series, Special Herbs, Vol. 1, appears again as the first nine tracks of Vol. 2, and a note on the cover explains that the latter "contains Volumes 1 & 2". For this reason, the album is also commonly known as Special Herbs, Vols. 1 & 2. The difference in record labels on which the two albums were released explains this quirk.

CD 2 - Metal Fingers – Special Herbs Vol. 1 & 2