Municipal Waste – “Massive Aggressive”
Don’t forget to pack your beer bong
Massive Brooming!
If “thrash band A” leaves the gig on “tour bus B”, and “thrash band C” with the same looking logo leaves the gig at the same time only with more cases of beer on “tour bus D”, how many more times do you need to listen to “thrash band B’s” record before you start to remember how good D.R.I.’s records were?
How many goddamn bands have spawned in the past couple years sporting the same spiky neon infused logos? Are we experiencing a thrash revival overload? Maybe. But goddamn, if there isn’t a band among them all whose material starts to leave a lasting impression on me like Municipal Waste does.
For six songs less than a minute you have seven others more than two minutes that actually are worth the riffs put into them. The reason being is that each song longer than 1:30 has an extra minute of song to allow it to breathe. (Yeah, I know I just said “breathe” in a description of a thrash band) There is some great variety in the songs they let slow down for a passage, speed it up a bit, really speed it up, add gang vocals, then throw in a good short solo for spice. These are the elements to a few songs on this record that make them memorable and digestible. See “Wolves of Chernobyl” and “Relentless Threat” for an example of these fine points.
"Acceptable grafitti!" - said in weekend nachos vocal style
So then my crusty metal friends: how many riffs does it take to get to the center of the good riffs?
Answer: about 154 in 7 songs. Which would bring us to “Upside Down Church”. Where upon first listen, sounds like the album literally blows its thrashy hot beer foam all over the walls. The song is fucking thrash metal defined. The rest is downhill from there.
