Toxic Holocaust at Myspace

Long time underground darlings Toxic Holocaust were the first significant American Thrash revival band and “An Overdose of Death” their third full length and their debut for Relapse Records is definitely an album that lives up the hype. Toxic Holocaust have the most original sound of any thrash revival band and instead of taking the usual influence from the big four, crossover thrash and the bay area the sounds of 80’s UK Hardcore Punk (Discharge, G.B.H), 80’s First wave Black Metal (Venom, Bathory, Sarcofago) and Canadian Speed metal (Razor, Exciter) are most prevalent.

“An Overdose of Death” displays a style that is punky without falling into the usual D.R.I/Crumbsuckers clichés that say Cross Examination have, and the Blackened edge is exquisite as it is primeval and raw whilst taking the concept of blackened thrash further than the typical nostalgic Luddite concepts that plague the genre. With the Punk elements Toxic Holocaust are more reminiscent of Abigail/Barbatos genius Yasuyuki Suzuki (who Toxic Holocaust mainman Joel Grind collaborated with on the Tiger Junkies side project) than say Destroyer 666 or Nifelheim. The Speed Metal elements differentiate Toxic Holocaust from Suzuki’s approach with their meaty leads and classic metal-esque yet lightning quick solo’s making “An Overdose of Death” a very different beast from say Barbatos’s “Rocking Metal Motherfucker”.

Like all good thrash revival records this is a record that would have sounded as fresh as in 1985 as it does now. Listen to the riff at 0:40 of “Feedback, Blood, and Distortion” and tell you don’t feel the urge to hurl yourself at the nearest object of a similar mass to yourself whether it’s a water cooler or your grandma. If you don’t, then you should probably listen to Fairyland or whatever kind of lame metal most paintywaist’s like to listen to as this is one for real thrashers.

Gama Bomb at Myspace

Hailing from Northern Ireland and at the forefront of the thrash revival, Gama Bomb have created an exuberant and irrelevant brand of thrash metal that is primarily about generating an atmosphere perfect for brainless fun, good times and any occasion with a large amount of alcohol is involved. The most socio-political they get is on “global warming” that is more a lurid exaggerated tale using climate change in the same way that they use Zombies in other songs; over the top entertainment. Lyrically these guys are Tankard if they were born 15-20 years later with songs about video games as well as the expected alcohol, B Movie and cartoonish violence.

Musically it’s hard to compare them to any other artist as they have a take on thrash that would have been relatively fresh if it had emerged in the late 80’s and on the evidence of this album they are certainly a more talented prospect than Evile, SSS or even Municipal Waste. Crunchy riffs feed into brief but compelling leads, and the solos are tasteful whilst remaining rip-roaring. Lead Vocalist Philly Bryne is able to switch from a nasal punkish snarl to a glass breaking falsetto at a moment notice and despite the jovial nature of the subject matter, he adds a certain edge of intensity to the proceedings. “Citizen Brain” is for me in the top ten thrash releases of this decade. If you like thrash, buy this album.

Silencer at Myspace

The first time I heard Silencer, it reminded me of going to my first few metal shows. Those shows were loud, indecipherable and full of aggression. But I was so swept up in the adrenaline and the energy in the room that it didn’t matter too much who was on stage, as long as they were loud and fast. It could’ve been a shitty local band with some pseudo-medical, genital related name like “Vaginitus” or “Penile Immolation” and I wouldn’t have cared, simply because the experience was so exhilarating.

But as you go to more shows, the novelty begins to wear and you start to look for flaws, like how you might notice protruding nose hairs on your girlfriend when all you used to see were her tits.

When I first heard Silencer, I was taken by their relentless riffing, catchy hooks and heartfelt aggression. Songs like Mnemodrone and The Harvest are the kind of things that makes you think back to your first show, in all its sweaty, drunken glory.

Unfortunately, the act grows stale pretty quickly. The speeding guitars and thrashing drums start to sound repetitive and—let’s face it— singer Chad Armstrong isn’t doing much to stoke the coals with his generic but serviceable screams.

That’s not to say this is a bad record, it’s just fairly typical death metal with a twist of thrash. I won’t skip it if it comes up on shuffle, but I’m not going to seek out a Silencer song.

Why you should listen to it
Catchy hooks and waves of guitars make Silencer a nice band to blast when you feel like being an asshole at red lights, solid musicianship and production.

Why you shouldn’t listen to it
Repetitive songs, that wave of guitars starts to feel like maple syrup after awhile, bland vocals adds some staleness and redundancy.

6.5/10

First of the Styigan at Myspace

As a way of getting your music out there as a new band handing out your demo to random passers-by at a metal festival is certainly a novel approach, but it’s the one that Wales First of the Stygian took and I guess since it got them this review it’s worked to some extent. First of the Stygian describe their music as “Progressive power thrash” and at least two thirds of that is true. Their straight up heavy metal approach is too straight forward to be progressive, but for what it is, it’s very promising. Taking influence from Judas Priest, Overkill, King Diamond, Helloween and Metal Church, these boys have a style that is both rooted firmly in the 80’s but is original enough to with enough songs of this calibre evolve into their own distinct sound.

Of particular interest are vocalist Tyrone Leigh Williams who seems to be able to perfectly mimic both King Diamonds hissing voice and James Hetfield circa Ride the Lightning along with coming up with a death metal growl, and bassist James Macdonald who can play one mean bass solo if he needs to. It’s not quite the finished product yet, but it’s certainly very good for a new band.

The story of Amenti is one that is infamous at least in British Metal circles. This thread gives the full story, but for a shortened version the tale goes something like this: A UK band allegedly bankrolled by one of the members parents messes allegedly around a bunch of UK promoters but allegedly goes too far when they allegedly somehow got hold of the contract to book Destruction’s UK tour and allegedly messed it up. A furore erupted with allegations being made that this allegedly left wing band, had a member who was allegedly racist. The story allegedly climaxed with Amenti allegedly splitting up 3 of the 4 members allegedly forming a new band a day later with the same tour dates but with their identities obscured by new names and masks.

There’s a whole lot of ‘allegedly’ in there, and to be honest I doubt anyone will ever know the whole or exact truth about this affair. Then there’s the music. Amenti released one album entitled “Under the Dying Sun”. The music formula here is a mixture of Mid 90’s Slayer meets Stampin Ground during the time they crossed firmly from Hardcore into Metal with stylistic touches from Exodus, Hatebreed, Biohazard and Iron Maiden. The album maintains a solid and impressive sense of groove and the guitar work is above average if not amazing. The drums were seemingly recorded using the same techniques used with St Anger and then rerecorded using a fisher price junior tape recorder, but for that the drumming is quite diverse and impacts to a considerable degree on the overall sound. Singer Mike sounds like Randy Blythe if Randy Blythe could actually hold a note and this vocal approach works well with the material.

Overall this is what most reviewers would term “a promising if not stellar debut”. True, I doubt I would listen to it again out of choice and neither would most of you, but it would have gained them fans among more commercially minded metal fan whilst being good enough for the rest of us not to hate upon and until about 6 months ago in the UK there was a sizeable online buzz about them. That buzz was extinguished when allegations about their business models were made by various sources including former touring partner and thrash elder statesmen Schmier of Destruction.

From then their trajectory was firmly downwards as more and more allegations were made by quite a few different people. If they did do any of the things they were accused of doing then they threw everything they ever earned in their 2 years of operating away. It’s a pity as if they had stayed honest (first assuming of course that they were dishonest in the first place) they probably would have been a big a draw on the uk commercial metal circuit in a few years as Panic Cell and Raging Speedhorn are now. As it is, for right or wrong none of the members will be able to show their faces in the British metal scene for quite some time to come.