Impaler

Without the unintended publicity generated when Tipper Gore and the other “Washington Wives” of the Parents Music Resource Center added Impaler to their infamous list of objectionable recordings next to Prince, Cyndi Lauper, and Judas Priest, the speed-punk-metal outfit from St. Paul, Minnesota would probably have slipped into obscurity. Fronted by vocalist Bill Lindsey, a longtime disciple of Alice Cooper, the group instead watched its independently financed 1985 EP Rise of the Mutants and the 1986 album If We Had Brains...We’d Be Dangerous surge from regional underground status to national notoriety as alleged threats to American youth. Lindsey, guitarist Mike Torok, bassist Court Hawley, and drummer Bob Johnson had already been cutting low-profile demos since 1983; after the sudden controversy they managed only one further release, the 1989 album Wake Up Screaming, before the original lineup disbanded. Lindsey later assembled new musicians to continue issuing occasional records whose tongue-in-cheek zombie-and-gore narratives unfolded across various heavy-metal styles, among them 1996’s Undead Things, 1998’s It Won’t Die, 2000’s One Nation Under Ground plus the compilation The Gruesome Years, 2002’s Old School Ghouls and The Mutants Rise Again EP, the 2004 DVD 20 Years Undead, and 2005’s Habeas Corpus. Tipper Gore and her colleagues may no longer recall the episode, yet should they ever attempt to police rock music again, Lindsey and his ghoulish cohorts stand ready.