Are you a thrash fan in today's day and age? Do you own all the Kreator records (minus all the ones that came after Coma of Souls, a'course)? Do you think that Pantera and all it's spawn are grotesque abominations and an insult to what metal really was supposed to be? Have you worn out/lost more than three copies of Holy Terror's hard-to-find Mind Wars on LP before giving up and getting the mp3s?

Well, you're in luck! There are modern thrash bands about that aren't actually modern in the slightest, and Toxic Holocaust is one of them. A one-man project headed by a punk-loving thrasher who can't play like the fellows from Coroner but who knows how to, well, THRASH, and better than hundreds of other modern bands. Hell on Earth is a record that could've come out in 1988, and nobody would have batted an eye.

First, the flaws. The production is bad. It makes the modern mistake of having overly-loud drums and overly-loud vocals. Do thrashers care about drums and vox? No, we care about the riffs! We don't want to strain to hear the damned guitars; we want them to be in our faces, beating us to death while we headbang! That's the biggest quibble anyone could have with this album, and since the riffs are still great, it doesn't matter as much as one would think. The only other problem that arises are the vocals themselves: they suck. Hard. They're boring, irritating, basic punk shouting with an annoying distortion effect layered over em to make the whole thing somewhat palatable. Needless to say, it doesn't work, and they really aren't of much consequence anyway, what with all the lyrics being about destruction and killing and zombies, generic thrash topics. If this guy was a better vocalist, this album would be so much better... oh well. Finally, at times the riffs slip into blatant punk (Burn) that, while going well with the extremely punkish drumming, does not fare well with the thrash everywhere else. Sure, thrash was very punkish at times, but not quite this overbearingly.

Now, on to the good: The riffs! There are plenty of riffs in this album, and most of them are good, fitting well with the music and making you want to headbang. The occasional thrash break helps the headbanging aesthetic, and the vocals even help out occasionally (Never Stop the Massacre's middle section with that fierce scream), but moreover, this album is straight-up punky fast-as-fuck no-modern-shit thrash, defiant to even the notion of progression and new ideas, extending an angry middle finger to trends while soloing behind its back.

And sometimes, that's all you really want or need.