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TÖXIK DEATH
Speed Metal Hell

Demonhood Productions (2014)
Rating: 7.5/10

Töxik Death occupy the same roster that harbours the talents of one of my favourite bands, Korgull The Exterminator, so I’m more than thankful that this Norwegian bunch are just as filthy and furious in their speed metal attack. Born back in 2003, this unholy quintet has taken a long, long time to get this rancid composition out of the vaults and into our bloodstream.

Now it’s out, every man and his dog will be contaminated and soon find themselves feasting on the flesh of others. Speed Metal Hell is a violent record that sounds as if it’s been recorded around 1984, such is its oily quality, made all the more contemptible by the vocal yelps of E.N., who is backed by a crazy gang who clatter, clank, rattle, batter and maniacally hammer throughout.

So, from what pit of germs does this combo creep out from? Well, those of you who like old Bathory, Venom, Destruction, Sodom and the likes will be more than happy with the mayhem on offer here. There’s a low-budget feel, but that’s what’s required so that E.N. and company can ply their dirty trade which for the most part consists of dirty, blackened riffs, tin-can hyper drumming, tortured bass and those hoarse rasps. Melody and low tempo is the last thing on the agenda as the band puts in a graveyard shift that takes it through scorching cuts such as ‘Thrashforces Of Evil’, ‘Sergeant Of The Wasteland’ and the rotten title track. Occasionally the outfit throws in a catchy riff, but such is the density of the billowing black smoke puked out from this wayward belching machine that the listener soon comes to the gates of claustrophobia, such is the layer of silt that has formed around the ear canal and nostrils.

Delivered with a crust punk attitude, Speed Metal Hell gives not a damn for convention or whether it’s merely paying homage to the old school. As it’s so convincingly putrid, every track works. T.V.’s sordid rhythms work well with A.W.’s sporadic leads, which work their way through the oil-slick like some radioactive mutant rising from the toxic waste. R.H.’s drums are about as subtle as being hit round the head with a dustbin, rising to the occasion with the hostile ‘D-Beat Destructor’ and the horrid ‘TerrorSexSlaughter’.

Speed Metal Hell connects all those old crusty extreme metal records you purchased between 1982 and 1986, and glues them together with congealed blood. However old fashioned some records try to be, only a handful reach that goal of the grotesque, and Töxik Death’s deranged debut of punkoid rust and nuclear Satanism is one that blackens the heart and batters the mind.

Neil Arnold

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