by Dave ThompsonClose to two years on from the decidedly lackluster No Need to Panic, Stoke-on-Trent's favorite Mohicans returned in summer 1989 with the brilliantly titled and ferociously breakneck A Fridge Too Far. Clearly influenced by the band's burgeoning success in the United States, where audiences rapturously applauded their drift toward hardcore speed metal, A Fridge Too Far opens as it means to go on, with the call-and-response rage of "Pass the Axe," and then blazes on from there. It's a very different sound to that which brought G.B.H. to fame in the first place -- anyone who jumped aboard for City Baby Attacked by Rats will find little to grasp onto here. But there's a seamless transition at work all the same, a sense that the early records' metal-punk hybrid is finally approaching fruition, and doing so from a decidedly more melodic stance than most bands. Plus, tracks like "Go Home" and "The Fist of Regret" retain enough of the band's original street punk credentials (plus some savage use of stereo) to prove that G.B.H. are still firing on the same targets they always specialized in.