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Municipal
Waster are perfecting the art of crossover. If you pay
close attention to Massive Aggressive, the band’s fourth
effort in a string of stellar releases, you’ll notice
that the subgenre has never sounded this tight. What
originally came from the logical meeting between metal
gone wild and sloppy hardcore was a violent spawn, but
as rambunctious attitude and sheer brutality collided
the result was at first exciting and then got watered
down with too many bands, writing too many songs and
putting too many albums that sounded too much like a
poor version of Massive Aggressive. In other words,
crossover used to be a genre where tightness was not of
the essence but Municipal Waste are bringing in the
chops. They are still loose enough, but the skills are
in check.
What I am
trying to say is that this album does crossover right. It is
fluent like few bands can. It has the agility of a cheetah and
has no tricks under its sleeves. In other words, it is a solid
crossover album for a change. Municipal Waste’s songs are
compact and well-structured. They are economic and quick. They
are knockout on the first round. They are constantly rocking and
jumpy where necessary.
As
belligerent as vocalist Tony Foresta sounds he is still a much
more effective vocalist than most in the field. His gnarly
delivery is serious and angry enough to balance out the light
topical nature with the virulence of the music. In places, he
reminds of a more elastic and willing Kurt Brecht. Like in
previous efforts, these songs seem to flow effortlessly through
incredibly effective guitar riffs and the ever relying octopus
drumming of go-to guy Dave Witte.
Massive
Aggressive is not necessarily an impressive album. In fact, it
does not improve over The Art of Partying, but it doesn’t have
to. It is still packed with killer riffage, one note vocals,
vengeful melodies, inspired drumming and the youthful and
mindless energy that faded away in the 90’s.
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