Joel Grind is a busy man. So busy in fact that it appears that he has so much material lying around that he feels compelled to release everything he ever recorded ever. It’s not so long ago that Grind released The Yellowgoat Sessions, another solo work where he bashed out eight tracks (bookended by two pointless and irrelevant atmospheric pieces) of muddily produced hyperspeed 80s metal worship that was, like most of his albums, crude and raw and felt like it was unfinished, or at best, rushed. And with a discography longer than the yellow line behind a stampede of diuretic camels, Grind must be afraid that we’ll forget about him if he isn’t shitting out release after release.And while he’s presumably locked in a studio right now bashing out even more material, we get a compilation featuring tracks that spans Toxic Holocaust’s career from his 2002 demo, Critical Mass, right through to the 2012 split with Municipal Waste imaginatively entitled Toxic Waste (oh, the hours spent thinking that one up!).
Though an adept musician – or at least a good mimic – Grind has yet to release an album that stands out as anything other than a tribute to the canon of 80s metal. 2011’s Conjure and Command had a more serious air about it and marked an evolution for the band, so why, when the band are making significant steps forward, would Grind choose to release this? None of the tracks have been re-mastered – no doubt to preserve their “true” sound – and neither has Grind taken the time to write any liner notes. While the former is understandable, the latter not so much; a comment or two on their writing, recording, or release wouldn’t go amiss would it? Of course, completists will love it but they’ve got these tracks already. Grind should be focussing on the next album instead of rehashing or repackaging the past. But since that’s what he’s been doing since day, maybe this should have been called The Best Of The Least Worst Of What Was Lying Around.
5/10
Jason Guest