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TOXIC TWINS, Menace to Unity (1997, Brennus)

The skull:
This is surely just a photo of the underside of a skateboard from the 80s, right? What else could it possibly be? It’s pretty cool, in that very-low-rent Pushead knockoff kind of way, even if the riveted metal motif doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. If anything, the fastened-together look more like a defense, rather than a menace, of unity. But anyway, the bandana is a nice touch, and I’m sure that if this guy’s jaw is open to speak, the word he’s speaking is, “Gnarly!” or its Corsu equivalent.

The music:
You’d think, with a name and a cover like this, that Toxic Twins would be some mid-grade new thrash band, but you’d be wrong. In fact, this Corsican (!!!) act have been around since at least 1994, and this, their second album, is a surprisingly interesting historical curiosity. The main vibe I get is “LA 1986,” as Toxic Twins sound like nothing so much as a cross between Warrior and Motley Crue, although that glammy base is leavened by a bit of the weirdness you’d sometimes get from bands like Saigon Kick or Warrior Soul. If that list of names does nothing for you, I can assure you, aside from Warrior (whom I love), it does little for me, but Toxic Twins blend it all up in a mid 80s stew that is nonetheless fairly enjoyable. The music isn’t especially heavy, but it’s definitely metal, and the glammier aspects feel more vestigial than intentional. I have no idea who is singing (basically all of the members are credited with vocals) but most of the lead vocals are sung by just one guy, and he sounds a lot like Warrior’s Perry McCarty, minus the upper end of McCarty’s (once) astounding range. This midrange rasp is put to great use, and some catchy melodies are eked out of not a lot of notes. There are a couple longer passages sung by another guy, and he’s not nearly as good, even if he isn’t terrible. My main complaint with Menace to Unity is that it rarely really gets going, and by the end of the disc, all the mid-tempo tunes start to blend together, but this was a serious problem across the board in melodic (non-power) metal in the mid 90s, and the tunes here are generally strong enough to overcome this as a serious handicap. While the other two Toxic Twins albums appear to be long out of print, evidently Musea (of all labels) reissued this about a decade ago and it’s still available. Supposedly the band is still around, but their last release came out in 2008, so who knows? But, this album is sufficiently good that I think I’m going to have to spend a little time trying to track down those other albums, if only digitally, because there’s some chance that they might be pretty good.
— Friar Johnsen

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SUICIDAL TENDENCIES, 13 (2013, Suicidal)

The skull:
If I told you about an album with a skull smashing through a brick wall as the cover, you’d immediately, and not unjustly, assume it would have to be the most cliched thing possible, not even fit for a bad tattoo. And yet, the actual execution of this cover positively screams, “Suicidal!” There’s no mistaking the skull as belonging to anyone BUT Mike Muir, and the rich detail of all the embedded words (mostly lyrics and song titles) elevates this skull from generic to utterly specific. I mean, it’s still a Big Dumb Skull (and a really big, really dumb one at that) but while most BDS bands could swap covers without anyone noticing, this skull pledges his allegiance to ST and no one else, which is nothing to sneeze at. And at least they didn’t top the skull with one of those hats with the brim flipped up.

The music:
When I was a young Friar, I was very seriously into Suicidal Tendencies. Their superb crossover classic, How Will I Laugh Tomorrow When I Can’t Even Smile Today (still one of the greatest titles of all time) came out right when I started getting into metal as a crabby teenager, and it struck a chord. Although they started as a punk band, this album was more or less pure thrash, albeit thrash tempered by the unique vocal stylings of mainman Mike Muir, who looked a whole lot tougher than he sounded (and I mean that in a good way – Muir’s cholo with a heart of gold persona was a large part of his charm). I still love that album, and the EP Feel Like Shit… Deja Vu (another great title), but my devotion waned for Lights Camera Revolution (with its ridiculous excess of slap bass, courtesy of new member and braid enthusiast Robert Trujillo), and I had more or less lost interest by Art of Rebellion. The writing got less and less interesting, the songs leaned more and more on Muir’s goofy schtick and Trujillo’s funk fetish, and when godlike guitarist Rocky George finally decamped for Fishbone (after a couple more truly uninspired ST albums), I left the band for dead, although they did fart out a couple more truly bad albums in the late 90s/early 00s. I seem to recall hearing that Muir suffered from some health issues after that which sidelined him from the music biz, but he finally put a new band together and 13 is the result. Now, despite my great affection for them in the late 80s, I never saw them back then live, so when they came around last year in advance of 13‘s release, I decided to go, and when they opened with “Smash It!”, a truly excellent new tune, I felt like maybe ST was back! Sadly, as the evening progressed, I felt less and less sure of that comeback, and in the end I left a little early because I was started to get truly bored. Cyco Miko had put together another impressive band (drummer Eric Moore in particular stands out as a monster – check him out in the fusion metal supergroup T.R.A.M.), but for all his efforts in obtaining the most overtalented musicans, Muir had failed to recruit anyone who could write worth a damn. Still, that “Smash It!” tune was great on stage, so when the album finally came out, I gave it a listen and was sorely disappointed. The production is weirdly powerless (especially the guitars) and Mike’s vocals wimpier than usual, and all the energy from the live presentation was missing. And that song is easily the best on the disc! Overall, the style is fairly similar to the thrash of the late 80s, tempered with a bit more of their historical hardcore, and an admittedly impressive amount of dynamics. “Smash It!” is still okay, despite its weakness, and there are a few other decent tunes (“Whose Afraid?” for instance) but the overall vibe is rather torpid. 13 is not a horrible album, and it’s not even close to the worst the band has produced (it’s probably not even in the bottom half), but ST’s discography is so weak overall that even a relatively good album by their standards could reek outright. This doesn’t reek, but it’s dull, and really, dull is about the last thing you expect from Mike Muir. I wish I could say that all it would take for ST to reclaim the crossover throne is a reunion with George and classic rhythm player Mike Clark, but those guys were on more bad albums than good, so it’s probably time for me to just admit that How Will I Laugh and Feel Like Shit were weird flukes and nothing more.
— Friar Johnsen

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NIHILIST, demo 1990 (1990, demo)

The skull:
Sometimes, two crossbones are not enough. In fact, sometimes, enough is never enough, as you can see here. It looks like whenever the artist was about to be finished, he decided to add something else, be it a bandana, some pirate runes, a stick of dynamite (?), or whatever that squiggly shit in the lower left is. It more or less works, but only because all the junk is added to the periphery of this fine piratical skull. He does seem to have something in his mouth, but at this low resolution, I’m having trouble making it out. Is it a clock? Is it an eyeball? Only Nihilist knows, and they just don’t care enough to make shit clear. Say what you will about the tenets of NSBM, but at least it’s an ethos.

The music:
If you couldn’t already tell from the logo, this is not the Swedish Nihilist, the band that spawned both Entombed and Unleashed. Instead, this is a thrash band from Georgia (the U.S. state, not the country!) I couldn’t locate this actual demo, but I was able to sample some other Nihilist tunes, and I must say, they seem to have been a pretty good band. They were fairly groovy for thrash, reminding me a little of what White Zombie would do, musically, on their lone good disc, La Sexorcisto, even if Nihilist aren’t animated by the same campy fun. This demo was even recorded by Scott Burns, so it probably sounded great. For a demo-level band, Nihilist were incredibly polished and impeccably tight, and while plenty of good bands somehow slipped through the cracks back in the golden days, I’m definitely surprised that no one has given this band the deluxe reissue treatment. This stuff is screaming for a Stormspell or Divebomb compilation to collect all of their demos. Get on it, intrepid reissuers!
— Friar Johnsen