MAYHEMIC - TOBA
At last, after anything but a full-length being in their discography, we have one from Chile's Mayhemic, and ode to the heyday of thrash in its most primal and heinous form. In an era where most of the thrash known to the rabble takes spoof and caricature to nauseating over the top levels, Mayhemic brings the palying field back to its violent primoridial roots and shows the clowns how to do it properly.
Sure, why not call your opening track something absolutely ridiculous like "Kollarbone Crushed Neanderthal"? Because it leads right into some rugged, unhinged riffs and cutthroat vocals to prepare you for the imminent onslaught (or at least try to!). After which "Extintion & Mystery" shows speed and thundering bass with some magnificently sloppy drums to make even early Tuetonic thrash blush hard. Released as a preview track well before the album's release, "Trimuph Portrait" did exactly what we needed it to do and left us thirsting for more, a pounding, earthshaking torture session of south of The Equator nastiness that oozes filth and rage. And what could be more thrash-sounding than "Hazardous Prowler" and it's not-so-subtle hints dropped to the thrash of yore and the fixation it had with the horror film culture and other Reagan-era staples as metal was making familes across the land repent for their souls? Finally with the title track (and also the longest) we do get some tempo changes and a few subtlties alluding to traditional heavy metal but this undoubtedly also means crushing riffs and dynamic drum bashing before sending you off to an afterlife of your own design. May your soul suffer throughout eternity as you well enough deserve!
Keeping the ancient spirit of raging South American extreme metal alive and well, Mayhemic are sure to bring forth a reckoning in the underground with their blasting thrash attack. A feast for sure, this is the quintessence of all things metal, dark and deadly and not for the faint of heart!
9/10
