Toxic Holocaust'
s debut,
Evil Never Dies
, may have originally been released in 2003, but it rocks and rages like it was plucked directly out of the metal underground circa 1983. The group's leader -- the appropriately named
Joel Grind
-- managed to pack quite a wallop on this recording, which perfectly laid out the group's subsequent releases. In other words, you know exactly what to expect with each new
Toxic Holocaust
release -- early
Metallica
/
Slayer
-styled thrash. Case in point, such eardrum bashers as
"War Is Hell,"
"Enemy of Jesus,"
"666,"
and the album closer,
"Atomik Destruktor."
For thrash so vintage-sounding that it could be passed off as an unreleased album teleported directly from the mid '80s,
is one potent metallic weapon. ~ Greg Prato