Author: Rok Klemše
Artist: Municipal Waste
Label: Earache
Released: 2009
Length: 28:49
Rating: 3.5/5
Thrash metal took the worst beating of its life in the early nineties. After the now-legendary Clash of the Titans tour, thrash got a brutal “lesson in violence” as labels started turning their backs on every single band in the genre. The culprit, obviously, was the rise of grunge, which suddenly everybody wanted everywhere, while thrash and metal in general fell into oblivion. But since you can’t keep a good root down, metal quietly and stubbornly bided its time for its big comeback, which thrash got with the legendary Thrash of the Titans in 2001, where plenty of long-split thrash giants joined forces again. There was no stopping the storm, and that same year a crossover outfit from Richmond, Municipal Waste, was born out of a green ooze of toxic nuclear waste.
The guys brought thrash back with their very first EP, then with the energetic crossover thrash of Waste ‘Em All, Hazardous Mutation and The Art of Partying they revived the already slightly rotting corpse of thrash metal, which nobody wanted to touch even with a ten-foot pole. Municipal Waste gave thrash back its badly needed fury and fun, with lyrics about beer, partying, zombies and mutations. And since teenagers grow up, the guys from Richmond sprouted some chest hair too, so on Massive Aggressive they tackle more serious topics. Well, they can still make you laugh with song titles like The Wrath of the Severed Head or Upside Down Church, but the partying of The Art of Partying is no longer front and center. Still, Massive Aggressive is like a brutal bender with gallons of booze – after barely thirty minutes of getting hit with three-minute wrecking balls, all you can do at the end is lie helplessly in a corner. MW perfectly nail the vibe of old-school crossover thrash metal in the vein of D.R.I., Suicidal Tendencies and Nuclear Assault, where in a rush of drunken passion somebody smashes a beer bottle over your head and Ryan Waste’s riffs, sharp as the shards, slice you up all over. Waste really gives his fingers a proper workout on the guitar neck with precisely measured bursts of guitar passages that are incredibly lively, dynamic, varied and aggressively fast. It’s great to hear the spectacular bass work of Land Phil, which is audible from a mile away and complements Waste’s riffing extremely well, treating your ears to plenty of tasty bass licks over the half hour. Dave Witte behind the drums delivers the standard thrash gallop but richly enhances it with well-thought-out bursts of double bass and octopus-style flailing across the toms and cymbals. Tony Foresta’s vocals bring the biggest dose of punk and hardcore to a band that’s otherwise almost pure thrash instrumentally, as he spits out his verses angrily but precisely, matching the instrumental backbone perfectly.
Massive Aggressive is, without a doubt, a good album. Not as fresh as Hazardous Mutation or as fun as The Art of Partying, but still a hard-hitting, uncompromising blitzkrieg of pure-blooded crossover thrash. The record’s biggest minus is exactly that: there’s no sign of any progress from the American quartet, who cling to their set genre niche like a drunk clinging to a fence, and the songs on Massive Aggressive can’t boast much variety either, quite the opposite – a lot of the time they’re even hard to tell apart. Massive Aggressive is definitely a massive tank of aggressive metal, but it might not hurt to think about where that tank is headed from here, so it doesn’t end up stuck in place, out of oil and with busted treads.
Lineup
Tony Foresta – vocals
Ryan Waste – guitars, vocals
Philip “Land Phil” Hall – bass, vocals
Dave Witte – drums
Production
Chris Harris
Tracklist
1.Masked By Delirium
2.Mech-Cannibal
3.Divine Blasphemer
4.Massive Aggressive
5.Wolves of Chernobyl
6.Relentless Threat
7.The Wrath of The Severed Head
8.Upside Down Church
9.Shredded Offering
10.Media Skeptic
11.Horny For Blood
12.Wrong Answer
13.Acid Sentence
