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This album in one word would be raw. This album is brutally raw. Toxic Holocaust is actually a one man band. One person, Joel Grind, performs all the instruments on the album. I always find this really impressive when one person can manage to perform an entire album all by themselves. This is his second album of a truly raw blackened style of thrash.

The music is really quick with a thrashy feel. The guitars have nice riffs and the drums are fast and keep the music going along quickly with nice break downs for some killer riffs. The style and tone of the instruments has an incredibly old school feel to it. Someone could tell me this is from 1984 and I wouldn't doubt them for a second. When you hear that it only came out less than a year ago, I have a harder time grasping it. The production on this album is brutally raw. This is a good thing that gives the music an old school feel while still keeping the instruments sounding crisp enough, but not overly produced in the least. I would have to say the production and mixing on the instruments is top notch.

The main downfall I have with this album is the vocals. Open the first listen I was like "This guy sounds like a robot that is in some serious pain." After a while the vocals have grown on me, but still not enough to really make me a huge fan of them. The best way I can think to describe them is black metal vocals done by a robot. The music on this album is great and thrashes like most bands haven't since the 80s, if only the vocals were better. The only other flaw is that some of the guitar solos feel out of place. They don't fit in with the rest of the music by sounding too clean and polished. The rest of the music is rough and raw; keep the solos the same way. A perfect example of this is the down-right silly sounding solo on the title track done by Bobby Steele formally of The Misfits.

This is a really enjoyable album that makes me wish more bands would bring back rawer sounding albums. The cover art (by Ed Repka, who has also done covers for Megadeth and Vio-lence) is absolutely phenomenal and helps to give this album its 80s feel. I am really looking forward to Joel Grind's next album to see if he can improve on his vocals and solos to make an album for the ages. This album is highly recommended for fans of black/thrash like early Celtic Frost and Venom or anyone looking for an album with old school written all over it.