The Drive Like Jehu Yank Crime (Lp+7″) vinyl is a purple pressing reissue of the San Diego post-hardcore band’s 1994 second album, bundled with the “Human Interest” 7″ and released on Headhunter Records (catalog HEDLP 37). Drive Like Jehu built their reputation by dismantling what a guitar band could do structurally, and Yank Crime is where that approach reached full force.
Who Drive Like Jehu Are and Why Yank Crime Matters
Drive Like Jehu formed in San Diego in the early 1990s and spent their short active run rewriting the rules of post-hardcore. Rick Froberg and John Reis together created something genuinely tense and angular, a guitar interplay that felt both combative and precise. Froberg went on to Hot Snakes and OBITS. Reis built an entire parallel career through Rocket From the Crypt, Hot Snakes, the Sultans, and the Nightmarchers. Mike Kennedy held down bass and Mark Trombino played drums. These are not incidental names. The band broke up in 1995 and briefly reunited in the 2010s, but their recorded output from the first half of that decade is what the conversation always returns to. Yank Crime is the centerpiece of that conversation.
What Makes the Drive Like Jehu Yank Crime (Lp+7″) Vinyl Worth Owning
The album itself moves between two modes: short, sharp bursts of controlled chaos and longer compositions that let the band stretch out over shifting dynamics without ever losing the coiled tension underneath. It is an out-of-control record that is also, paradoxically, extremely deliberate. Every member sounds like they are operating at maximum output. The cover artwork is by Froberg himself, which adds another layer of coherence to the whole package. This repress presents all of that on purple vinyl, which is the kind of detail that makes a reissue worth tracking down rather than settling for whatever’s floating around used.
The Pressing Details
This edition is on Headhunter Records, catalog number HEDLP 37, pressed on purple vinyl. The inclusion of the “Human Interest” 7″ is not a throwaway addition. It rounds the package out and gives you material that would otherwise require a separate hunt. If you are building a serious collection around the San Diego post-hardcore scene or the broader lineage of bands that came out of that mid-90s moment, this is a coherent, well-assembled physical package at a fair price point. Purple vinyl, a companion 7″, and cover art drawn by the vocalist. This is the version to own.
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