In almost fifteen years of raison d’être, Portland, Oregon-based project Toxic Holocaust released a handful of studio releases that undersigned does appreciate enormously. Toxic Holocaust are the brainchild of Joel Grind, who started this outfit in 1999 to express his passion and devotion for Punk / Metal à la Venom, Discharge, Slayer and G.B.H. He composed and recorded four studio outtakes before, mainly as sole composer / musician, with the last ones done via current label Relapse; those amongst you who might be interested, check out the review undersigned did on 2011’s Conjure And Command, posted September 2011 (see Archives). I can also recommend to read the fabulous review -it- (aka myself) did on Joel’s side-project Yellowgoat, posted April 13th 2013 (this album, The Yellowgoat Sessions, will surely be part of my end year’s top-list!).
This newest studio record was engineered, once again, with Nick Bellmore (Hatebreed, Phantoms, Full Blown Chaos), mixed by Kurt Ballou (of Kruger / Adai / High On Fire / Skeletonwitch / …-fame), and mastered by Brad Boatright (think: Sleep, Cleric, From Ashes Rise, Enabler, Twitching Tongues etc.). Unfortunately this album lasts for less than half an hour (28:14 minutes), which sort of suggests to label it as ‘mini’-album rather than ‘full length’ (in case anyone might care about this definition).
Anyway, Chemistry Of Consciousness brings a perfect blend of twisted Punk and nasty Thrash Metal from the Old School once more. And everything fits. The riffing and rhythm are power-driven, with careful attention for details, and the leads + solos are perfected with passion. The tempo nicely balances in between the extremes of slow and speed-up, yet without exaggeration whatsoever. And that’s one of the surpluses Toxic Holocaust offer. They do not focus on blasting eruptions to express the fierceness of the songs. Each composition is so enormously overwhelming in its extremity so that lightning fast blast parts are not necessary. And believe me when I say that even the slowest parts are skull-crushing! When it comes to the vocals, well, they fit perfectly to the instrumental part of the album. They are very rough, flirting with a hint of deadly gruntiness.
For fans of Venom, Discharge, The Exploited, Nuclear Assault, Sodom, G.B.H., Municipal Waste etc.