The latest CD edition of this seminal early American hardcore album is the most definitive version yet, pairing up the original nine-song album with their original session outtakes and the songs from the Cleanse The Bacteria compilation. Absolutely essential proto-grind / avant-hardcore, one of my all-time favorite albums, period. This 2016 repress comes in jewel case packaging with stark black-and-white imagery, lyrics, and a Japanese-style obi strip. Here's the old review from the previous LP release:

      When it comes to extreme hardcore, Siege's legendary Drop Dead is the most important record ever. Can there be any doubt? C'mon, we're talking about the EP that influenced Napalm Death to play grindcore, and the music that birthed every blastbeat spewing outfit that has come since. It's fucking staggering to listen to Drop Dead today, in 2006...these songs, recorded way back in 1984, still sound every bit as berserk and apocalyptic and brain melting as they did then. Beneath Rob Williams' mach 10 thrash beats and Kevin Mahoney's psychotic, blood-curdling vocals, Siege's songs had hooks that any band would kill for, and one of the most destroyed guitar performances ever put to tape. These guys totally mutated hardcore in the early 80's and turned it into something completely new, just listen to the psychedelic hardcore epic "Grim Reaper" with Mahoney howling about a man being diagnosed with cancer as he belts out a freaked out saxophone performance over nightmarish tape loops and the rest of the band noisily improvising on one noxious riff.

Total genius. Aside from Bad Brains and Black Flag, I can't think of any other bands that were this crucial to the development of the American punk underground. Drop Dead is one of my all-time favorite records, a statement of extreme music that has never been equaled in my opinion, and it's essential to anyone into extreme hardcore, grindcore, outsider heaviness, and noise-damaged insanity.