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CHEMICAUST
Unleashed Upon This World

Dark Rituals (2018)
Rating: 6/10

Having failed to make an impact with their 2015 EP As Empires Fall, Texan thrashers Chemicaust probably won’t make much more headway with what is their debut full-length, an album riddled with thrash clichés.

The all too familiar cover design gives the game away straight away as metal art master Ed Repka is called in to paint more contaminated humans and slime. But like much of his more recent work, what it adorns is a rather generic thrash workout which you’ll struggle to decipher from the rest of the glut currently clogging up the thrash metal world.

Yeah, yeah, the riffs are nice and crunchy, and yeah, yeah, there’s the Slayer-meets-every-other-thrash-act-from-the-80s vocal sneers, but the quality just isn’t there, in spite of the fact that this is actually an enjoyable thrash album from a band that clearly knows their stuff. However, place Unleashed Upon This World alongside any other thrash release that has emerged in the last 20 or so years and you’ll find it hard to tell the difference. But sadly, it seems that is exactly how these bands want to be painted, as frothing fan boys eager to spin tales of disease and ruin while aping those maniacal Slayer solos amidst a barrage of salivating riffs.

Okay, so this workout is bereft of the annoying humour that seems to litter so much new thrash, and I’m grateful for that. And sure, I can appreciate the spiteful qualities of tracks such as ‘Incarcerated’ and ‘Vanished’. But, when you’ve heard ‘Angel Of Death’ as a teenager in the 80s, this sort of stuff is akin to drinking cats piss after a nice pint.

Chemicaust, as their look suggests, do exactly what it says on the thrash tin – a barrage of hurtling drums, a maniacal bass and spit-covered riffs which churn and churn. Sure, play this to a gang of all too appreciative teenagers who’ve just had their first beer and you might be on to a winner, but this “new wave of thrash” malarkey just isn’t fooling everyone. And in spite of some great energy and vigour displayed with cuts such as ‘Human Sacrifice’ and ‘Genocide’, I can easily find better things to do with 40-minutes of my life.

The album ends with a cover of Exodus classic ‘A Lesson In Violence’, but the reality is Unleashed Upon This World should be a lesson to everyone and anyone who wants to take up thrash for a living. Because through all its endeavour and energy, Chemicaust’s debut sounds as common as muck and remains just another cog in the wheel of averageness.

Neil Arnold

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