Defiance

by Eduardo RivadaviaNot to be confused with Portland's Oi! band by the same name, this Defiance was a very minor participant in the late-'80s San Francisco Bay Area thrash metal scene. In fact, their origins lay quite a bit earlier, in 1985, but it took all of four years for vocalist Ken Elkinton, guitarists Doug Harrington and Jim Adams, bassist Mike Kaufmann, and drummer Matt Vander Ende to get their collective act together sufficiently for Roadrunner Records to issue their debut album, Product of Society. Hardly a visionary work, this followed in the footsteps of local heroes like Exodus, Testament, and Death Angel with decidedly more average results, and, come 1990's sophomore Void Terra Firma, singer Elkinton had been singled out as the sacrificial lamb for this mediocrity, and replaced by Steve Esquivel. Defiance's third opus, Beyond Recognition (1992), fared no better and signaled the end of the band's ignominious run; however, singer Esquivel would go on to greater fame some years later, as a member of neo-thrashers Skinlab.