Municipal Waste/Toxic Holocaust - Toxic Waste (2012) EP Tankcrimes

Fast and unrelenting, this EP brings together two of the best of the new wave of thrash, Municipal Waste and Toxic Holocaust. It's a fantastic release by Tankcrimes, who may be my new favorite label.

I don't think I have hyped a label before on here, but do yourself a favor and go check out Tankcrimes right now. You can hear samples of all the bands on the site - like actual full songs - and they have some fantastic groups, lots of good thrash and even good prices in the store, especially in a day and age when new vinyl releases for metal bands are hitting $20-30.

This EP was a while in the making and finally came out earlier this year and I was super excited to get a copy. It's dense and fast and over too fast. All four songs are great, raw thrash and if you at all like either of these bands - or want somewhere to start - this is a must-get.


Alter-ed States is my favorite of the bunch, but really, all four are totally bitchin' tracks guaranteed to get you stoked.

Municipal Waste - Hazardous Mutation (2005) LP Earache Records

Continuing on with my thrash-centric reviews, I thought it was about time I brought up Municipal Waste. Much like Toxic Holocaust, Municipal Waste is a band celebrating 1980's thrash, but borrowing more from the D.R.I. school of crossover (espicially Tony Foresta's vocals) with a healthy dose of reckless partying thrown in.

Hazardous Mutation is their first release on Earache and while more polished than their earlier efforts, is a lot less polished than their follow up, The Art Of Partying, which came out three years later. It's fast and fun, with some blazing riffs and serious speed. There are no keyboards, no sound effects, nothing to detract from the relentless pace of hardcore thrash and its awesome.


There are also very few stand-outs on the album for me, unlike The Art Of Partying, which has a ton of tracks I can name and wait for when I listen to that record. That being said, this album kills. Its dense and fun where many of their contemporaries seem to find it more important to be serious and hard, they get down with beer and thrash in equal measure andhow can you possibly not like that?

Overkill - !!!Fuck You!!! (1987) 12" EP Megaforce Worldwide

Overkill was a band on the periphery of my thrash favorites back in 1987 and one that my friends liked a bit more than I back in the day, especially as I started to tend towards raw sounds and more of a skate/thrash esthetic. Truth be told, the vocals took some getting use to with the high pitched squeals and soaring upper register, something I never truely dug back in the day.

That being said, Overkill is considered today one of the better thrash acts of the late 1980's and their back catalog is stocked with solid albums, with 1985's Feeling the Fire and 1988's Under The Influence being true classics of the genre.




!!!Fuck You!!! was  an EP released back in 1987 with the title song actually a cover of the Subhumans and the remaining four songs all from a live recording that sale year at The Phantasy Theatre in Cleveland, OH. It's tight and fast and once you get use to the vocals, its an excellent EP. It has been reissued with one extra track on CD (a live version of 'Fuck You') and its a great place to start if you want to check out one of the more operatic and fast bands to have graced the thrash scene from day one.

Extra Hot Sauce - Taco Of Death (1988) LP Peaceville Records

When I have a bummer day at work, this is one of the few records I liked to put on at work (via you tube) and listen to. It never fails to make me smile. Extra Hot Sauce is a thrash/crossover/grindcore band with a damn good sense of humor. They only released this album from what I can tell and were notable for their drummer, Dan Liker, who would later play bass with the fabled Nuclear Assault.

Pretty much every song here is offensive in a late-1980's kinda way, like the lyriks for AIDS which go:

AIDS/Who fucking cares?



Which is funny if you are into offensive and massively irreverant humor, but no so much if you are thin-skinned.



They also cover a slew of songs, most notably 'Communication Breakdown' by Zeppelin - in a bit over a minute. It's pretty much unreconizable, but its still damn funny and I laugh ever time I hear it. Their cover of Sabbath's 'Paranoid' is way less thrashy and fast - at least for the intro. Then it speeds up with blast beats and its just awesome.

This was a record I really had to argue myself into getting as I tend to stay away from this kind of fringe joke band stuff, especially hard-to-find records that command big money. This was found on the cheap on eBay and I snagged it happily. It's an interesting release in the pantheon of late 1980's thrash and one that you could easily see inspiring modern thrash bands like Municipal Waste.

Iron Maiden - In Concert - 773 (1993) LP BBC Transcription Service

My understanding of this LP is that the BBC makes its archived recordings available to buy for other commercial radio stations. Iron Maiden has two such recordings from what I can find, this, the 773 disc, and an earlier 669 recording. I picked it up from Reckless here in Chicago and its looks legit enough to me, but the music is what really matters.

It's an awesome live show, recorded in Holland and from what I can tell, during the "Fear Of The Dark Tour" in 1992, Bruce Dickenson's second to last tour with Maiden. The set list is amazing, comprising the best of the later part of Maiden's catalog, including "Bring Your Daughter To The Slaughter," "Can I Play With Madness?," "Heaven Can Wait" and "Fear Of The Dark."

I'm a huge Maiden fan and have listened to the entire Dickenson catalog many, many times. I haven't posted anything up here as I only have cassettes and CD's of the catalog, save for this lone, LP release.

And its a killer one at that. This was probably Bruce's last great tour with the band as the 1993 tour saw him having already announced his leaving the band. Those dates had to be bittersweet for all involved, especially as bassist Steve Harris said he thought Dickenson was phoning it in on more than a few occasions.

What blew me away here is the relentless energy Maiden has live, how crushingly they perform every song. Totally professional at every turn. The mix is damn near perfect - way better than the Rock in Rio live release which has the guitars way back in the mix and the bass up front.

As far as I can tell, there is no other official release of these recordings beyond what I have here, which is a bit of a bummer as this LP is fantastic. I've had it on the turntable for the past month at least once a day.

Reckless is in the process of tracking down a copy of the 669 recording for me and I'll hopefully post about that when it arrives. As it is, there doesn't seem to be any youtube clips of the music from this one, so here is "Sanctuary" from another date in 1992. Long live Maiden!

Destruction - Live Without Sense (1989) LP Noise International

The first time I heard 'Mad Butcher', I was pretty blown away and that set one track sold me on their entire catalog. Back in 1989, I bought this live record (on cassette, which has been lost to the ravages of time) and couldn't listen to it enough.

In the late 1980's, thrash and metal records had a tendency to be very, very treble heavy and bass seemed relegated to the way background. Most Destruction records suffered from this pretty badly, though the highlight of the band has always been the technical guitar playing anyway. This live record has a fantastic mix and the bass comes out, giving this release a punch lacking in a lot of their studio LP's.



There are a ton of highlights to this record - "Curse The Gods" and "Thrash Attack" being my favorties, but "Mad Butcher" is awesome here with a long into and crowd going nuts - you can almost feel the air cycling out of the pit way back in '89.



Considered one of the best technical metal bands back in the day along side Kreator, Destruction is two parts thrash to one part technical virtuosity and the later really makes the thrash part hit hard. I wouldn't consider them a technical band, more a thrash band with some really good guitar work. The vocals can be a hit or miss for some with the high-pitched squeals on "Curse..." and others. But really, if you listen to "Mad Butcher" and don't dig the band totally, the vocals won't change your mind one way or other other.

There are so many great early thrash bands, but Destruction still seems a cut above the rest, a rare treat for fans of technical metal and thrash.

Toxic Holocaust - Hell On Earth (2005) LP Relapse Records

Toxic Holocaust are one of the few recent thrash bands who get it right - stripped down, immediate thrash, without bells and whistles, without anything added to the mix. It's not modern thrash - it's late 1980's thrash made in 2005.

I saw Toxic Holocaust open for The Possessed and by the time their set was over, I was rushing to the merch booth to pick stuff up - only to find they had packed it up as nothing was selling. I think if they stayed open for longer, they would have found a lot of new fans clamoring for gear.

After the show, I bought every one of their records and was blown away to find that Toxic Holocaust is one guy - Joel Grind, who, at least on the first few records, played all the instruments and recorded the album by himself.




Every song on Hell On Earth is great - raw, unfettered thrash. No pretense. If you like this one track, you'll like the whole catalog of what Joel and Toxic Holocaust has done, I absolutely guarantee it. Plus, cover art by Ed Repka? You know this has to be good.