| CD REVIEW Toxic Holocaust |
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Band : Toxic Holocaust Originally, Toxic Holocaust was formed in Boston by Joel Grind as a solo Black Metal project in 1999, and with that music in mind, he delivered his first demo Radiation Sickness (a 12-track, 21:39 affair) that same year. The original band split in 2001, but soon after Grind resurrected the project with a musical change towards the Thrash genre, recording the 2 tracks for a 7-inch split with Oprichniki with the aid of a drum machine, playing all other instruments himself. I'll not bore you with a complete list of the stuff the man has released since, as it is quite a lengthy one including several demo tapes (some full-length, two also live recordings), 7-inch singles, 7-inch split-singles, contributions to compilation albums (for a complete list, consult metal-archives.com/band.phd?id=3578), and two previous full-lengths (2003's Evil Never Dies and 2005's Hell On Earth), all of which he recorded on his own little self. He DID go out on the road for several self-financed and self-organized tours with a full band (currently comprising Al Positions and Philly Gnaast, if I'm not mistaken) though, taking his music to Australia, Japan, Europe, Canada, Brazil, and all over the US. It was almost inevitable that eventually Joel would attract the attention of Relapse. As a first result of their cooperation, the label issued a split 7-inch with Bludwulf as a first release in their new Speed 'n' Spikes series, in January 2008. Somewhere along the line, Joel relocated to Portland, Oregon. When you'll check out myspace.com/toxicholocaust, you'll find Bathory, Discharge, and Venom posted as influences, and when you'll listen to the 6 posted songs off the new album, you'll hear additional influences from Motörhead (actually, one of the first thoughts that entered my mind was that, if Lemmy had chosen a Thrash influence in his music, that might very well have sounded pretty much this way...but like with a different kinda singer), and I guess Slayer is in there somewhere as well. In other words: pretty basic Thrash Metal, with a Punk attitude to boot. From what I've read (and I've come to read quite a bit about this project) the new album is slightly more sophisticated in built, and thereby looses some of its Punk flavourings. For the first time Joel allowed another person to sit in on the instruments during recordings, leaving the drums to Zeke's skinbasher Donny Paycheck, which sensitively increased the quality of the music in that area. Leading the recordings, was famed producer Jack Endino (who's not only known for his work in the Grunge scene of the '90 having produced albums by Mudhoney, Nirvana, and Soundgarden, but also for such Crossover bands as The Accüsed and The Dwarves), and he's given the guitars a nicely fat sound. Combined with Joel's raucaus vocal style, the album sounds pretty evil overall, perhaps a little "simple" in the riffs and solo parts (which are usually rather short anyway) as seen in "Metal standards", but quite entertaining if you like that bit of Punk in your Thrashy Metal (or vice versa, that portion of Thrash in your '80s Metallic Punk). Not exactly world class, and I wonder if Relapse would even have paid the least bit of attention is there wasn't the quaint gimmick of this being a one-man project in the studio (because these days, you need gimmicks to sell a record, you know). Nevertheless, I'm sure that Relapse will be releasing this 13-track album (setting a record in TH history with a full-length duration of no less than 36 ½ minutes) on vinyl as well (on a limited rotation, of course...as usual as well!!!). 83/100 Tony. |