Date: July 1st, 2022
Label: Nuclear Blast Records
If it’s not hard rock then thrash metal is the first station in life of every metalhead on Earth. There are no headbangers who didn’t hear about Sodom, Exodus, Sepultura and even Metallica (if we can say they are thrash metal). I don’t know why but to me always from the beginning it sounded very simple. Drums are dominating bass and vocals. I imagine that every thrash band can consist of only three men. It’s enough but sometimes it’s not like that. Municipal Waste is now very popular between thrashers.
Classical thrash can never be bad so here we have old school of thrash in eight songs. All short but just in place as they should be. There is not much philosophy with this genre of metal. It’s not like prog metal bands-long solos,songs which last ten minutes and in some cases very boring. This is thrash, for God’s sake,songs are short, aggressive, full of adrenaline and fast as they can be.
I am not that big fan of thrash for many reasons but “Electrified Brain” by Municipal Waste this time changed my mind. Opening song is “Electified Brain” short intro with some electrical sounds and shredding already begins. Song is pretty aggressive with one big break at the end, I can see this is a remark of this album, breaks as the entrance in the end of the song (if I can say that). As I am going further I expected that every song will be similar to the previous one but noo. “Last Crawl” and “The Bite” really surprised me. Next to colorised melodies there are really good solos. I was like “Wooow,these guys want to burn us or what?!“
“Blood Vessel-Boat Jail“ is my favorite song of the album, I think it’s a bit different from others so it gives special atmosphere to album. Yes,there is classical thrash vibe during all album,no question to that but it’s not so classical as like as smaller thrash bands. We here in Serbia have a lot of those bands so maybe that is one of the reasons why I don’t have much respect for this genre. Looking at the album at once it’s really compacted, from one song you don’t notice when another begins,they are all story for itself but well mixed and connected. Songs like “Demolizer”, “Crank the Heat” or “Ten Cent Beer Night” will be a real treat for the audience and diehard fans. From “Crank the Heat” songs have less thrash vibe. At some moments I thought there were some power metal riffs.
The atmosphere of the album is aggressive and full of male energy, I imagine how hard mosh pits would be. It has the vibe of the ’80s but with high production is excellent. Lyrics are all really different. I don’t see any connection with the name of the album except the song “Electified brain”. That’s good in some way, all songs can be singles and they all are really good so I believe it will be known which one is from this album. Lyrics from “Demolizer” and “Blood Vessel-Boan jail“ are my favorite. Thrashers have political and sociological subjects so this time this kind of a theme wasn’t missed. In these crazy plague times problems with electrified brains is not rare. Big leaders made a procedure of lobotomy on us all.
Art work is my favorite part on every album but this time nothing much is interesting. It can be noticed among others but still nothing special to say about it. There is a good path for these guys to be next Sodom or Slayer (as the thrash Gods) but with more originality which is hard between thrashers and their own remarks everything will be just in place in a while.
