In the annals of crossover thrash, DRI is probably the first band that comes to mind. After them, it's the big acts that were close to but not as definitive as Dealing With It and other classic DRI albums:
DRI is touring again and coming to Austin, TX on February 21 -- and probably the only crossover thrash band that continues the 1980s without half-ironically re-hashing them, Birth A.D., is going to be there to open up for them.
Just about anyone can imitate the past. But it's like a photograph of a photograph; something is missing. There's no experience being shared, where in the original music, there was. So the "retro-thrash" of today sounds hollow as it should, and to compensate, those bands inject "humor" and "irony" to cover up their utter lack of purpose.
Birth A.D. is different. They sound like SOD on Speak English or Die if it had a lovechild with the later DRI album Four of a Kind, but even so, they carry on. Their sound is like the crossing of those bands if they'd kept going in that vein. So Birth A.D. is both a tribute to the past, and a modern continuation of it, as well as having its own sound and voice.
The complete lineup:
It's going to be a heck of a show. Rumor has it that people who get there on skateboards get a discount for carbon-neutral transport that's also part of crossover thrash -- the term "thrash" came from thrashers, or skateboarders, who listened to punk/metal crossover.
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