Mailbox Full of Mouse-Traps

I have to get behind this album just because it's under twenty minutes in length. I've been listening to a lot of hour plus albums lately, so it's pleasant to listen to something that's over quickly. It's not just the change of pace that's nice, though: a running time that short for an LP shows that Backhoe Butchery is a band that can get their point across and go. Makes sense for their employed genre: thrash metal, pure and oldschool, though not with the crossover bent you might think when seeing the cartoony cover art. This band takes its cues from Slayer, Sepultura, and other oldschool artists, as well as adding a certain melodic flair that isn't quite oldschool or modern, but a rather sideways move from what you'd normally hear in thrash. It's new enough to be interesting but old enough to have good songwriting, which makes for a solid thrash album all around.

The back of this CD has a small drawing of a butterfly in the upper left hand corner with a caption that reads, with an arrow pointing at the insect, "Looks like a nice butterfly but it's a mean one." Some silliness should be expected, but it's mostly relegated to the song titles; otherwise, it's pretty dead fucking serious in its delivery. It's rough, dark, and oldschool, with a Max Cavalera circa 'Arise' vocal delivery and riffs that spin between midpaced chugs and Slayerish tremolo, all bound together with atonal solos that almost sound like they come from a mid-era Deicide release. The music is some of the purest, most oldschool thrash that I've heard come out of the US recently, which is just the way it should be. And it's not Municiple Waste retro thrash: there's a difference between actively trying to 'be oldschool' and to simply make oldschool music, and Backhoe Butchery does the latter. It has the most important elements of oldschool thrash: lots of riffs and rhythm changes, sparingly employed melody, and a definite sense of aggression and anger.

Isn't that what thrash comes down to? That anger? Because if so, Backhoe Butchery has probably mastered thrash, because it's some of the most aggressive material I've heard in a long while. This is approaching Besieged (Canada) territory when it comes to savagery. Each riff seems carefully engineered to sound as antagonistic as humanly possible, and is completely lacking in the fun bounce of Municipal Waste or other such artists. This isn't thrash about partying or moshing: it's about beating various people to death with a hammer, and it's just the way thrash should be. There's a sense of dramatic tension in everything this band does, with brooding uphill climbs in tempo and volume occurring right before huge explosions of sonic force, like Cryptopsy covering Exodus. I love the production here: it's clear yet sort of cluttered, with all the instruments huddled around each other even though they're all separately audible. Just about everything on this album is done right for what it is: pure oldschool thrash that's here to stay.

Backhoe Butchery's been around for seven years now, and I seriously doubt that they'll ever change what they're doing. This is a band that's found its niche and will be dutifully plugging away at it and releasing very solid albums for a long time. All the oldschool thrashers need to give this a listen: there's no retro, no irony, not a trace of anything that isn't a pure representation of the genre. Looks like a nice album but it's a mean one.