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RADUX
Disaster Imminent EP

Svart (2018)
Rating: 5/10

With a cover that reminds me of Toxik’s 1989 classic album Think This comes Disaster Imminent, the debut four-track EP from youthful thrash combo Radux – whose band name sounds like a shower gel!

You’ll get no surprises from this bunch from Finland, especially if you were on board with previous outings in the form of the Radiation Kills (2015) and Last Ones To Survive (2016) demos. Imagine then a spilled toxic crate containing Nuclear Assault, Anthrax and mid 80s Teutonic blazing, and that’s what Disaster Imminent spits out.

Vocally, bassist Juho Vaarala does bring a slightly annoying high-levelled yap straight out of the John Connelly (Nuclear Assault) department, but there’s always been a penchant for this sort of hyper thrash even if we’re dealing with a band so intent on aping a style they very likely never experienced first time round.

Time then to get whipped up into a frenzy by the joys of ‘Fallout’, ‘Irradiated Death’, ‘Ashes Of This World’ and ‘Think For Yourself’; titles which could easily have appeared on albums by the Nukes or even Toxik. But although this EP lacks the technical prowess there’s still some nice axe work courtesy of Markus Kyrölä and Joacim Osenius, while the frantic cereal box banging of Leo Mäkinen also brought a wry smile to my stony face as I sifted through the familiar, albeit exuberant thrashy workouts of this naïve bunch of lunatics.

What is clear is that the band has been brought up on an unhealthy diet of 80s thrash, and this is a style that literally oozes from their pores – just check out the speed and ferocity of the snappier ‘Fallout’ and ‘Think For Yourself’, which sandwich the two longer tracks ‘Irradiated Death’ and ‘Ashes Of This World’.

For intensity, ‘Fallout’ is the stand-out track, even if it’s a straight up “homage” to Nuclear Assault’s ‘After The Holocaust’. But while it’s an ideal way to kick off the EP, the rest of the composition feels a tad weaker, although the guitar work on ‘Ashes Of This World’ is admirable.

However, for me the novelty of the mimicry quickly begins to wear off; Radux rather typical of so many kiddy thrash acts doing the rounds who are clearly unable to find an identity of their own. Yeah, I fully understand what it is to worship the 80s – damn, I was part of that scene – but to hear such inferior imitations tends to leave me seething at the cheek of it all. Here’s hoping then that after the initial buzz and when the dust settles that the band realises that they’ll need more than obvious homage to see them through, otherwise it’s game over.

Neil Arnold

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