The Truth of What Will Be

The more one listens to thrash, the harder it becomes to discover something new, something exciting and powerful. One will find uninspired performances and mediocrity stemming usually from blatant copying of previous successful thrash outputs. Of course, there are occasionally bands that have remained somewhat hidden, but possess so much force and attitude that they at last trigger all those familiar emotions.

Epidemic if not hidden, is certainly an overlooked thrash band and it seems to me that its debut record, “The Truth of What Will Be” has gone somewhat unnoticed. The band undeniably developed its own brand of thrash metal and this is reflected on this debut. For such a short record, it manages to encapsulate and it is defined musically by a variety of intra- but also extra- metal influences, without of course ever leaving the domain of thrash metal. Epidemic infuses into their compositions several traits that characterise this variety of genres producing a sound that I can only summarily describe as crusty thrash with a serious grindcorish influence.

The debut features some simple yet incredible thrash passages such as the amazing intro of "In Fear We Kill" which leads to some great and fast tremolo picking 55s into the track. However, the way Epidemic arranges most of the tracks is so unconventional that it has more in common with grindcore than thrash metal bands. Epidemic literally splices into these short tracks explosive passages of instrumental battery which is reminiscent to the structure of a crossover/grindcore microsong. The band carried on this style to "Decameron" which is essentially an extension of the debut record. My review of "Decameron" explores further Epidemic's unconventional structuring of tracks and seemingly disordered performance.

Moreover, it is not just the arrangement of the tracks, but also the overall musical ideas on the record and direct incorporation of specific traits that suggest a grindcorish influence. The wonderful mid – paced griminess from 2m52s – 3m45s on “Hands of Ruby” actually reminded me of the section beginning at 39s from “Human Garbage” and the intro of “Scum” from Napalm Death’s debut album. The track even has a short but very noticeable blast beat from 2m21s - 2m24s. But the most overt grinder on the record has to be "Thigh Rubbage" which straddles somewhere in between crossover thrash and grindcore. Too chaotic to be similar to a Nuclear Assault or S.O.D grinder but not chaotic enough to be straight up grindcore it is, nonetheless, a pure explosion of energy with sudden tempo changes and a heavy usage of blast beats. The vocal performance on "Thigh Rubbage" and "Finer Things in Life" is also indicative of the record's direction as it harks back to the incomprehensible screaming of bands like Sore Throat (a.k.a Saw Throat) and Extreme Noise Terror. I must note Carl Fulli's quite interesting vocals since they do not seem to really fit in any traditional style of thrash vocals. Of course, it is evident that there is a death metal influence to his vocals which becomes much clearer on the next album where the vocals feature more growling.

The production is raw and organic resulting in a very gritty sound marked by Mark Bodine's distorted as fuck bass which boldly at times takes central role on the record (simply listen 32s into "AMX” and from 2m30s - 3m00 on "Hands of Ruby"). The production allows the music to have a greater sensory impact and it is integral to the chaotic nature of the record. It almost sounds like “The Truth of What Will Be” is a recording of a live show because all the aggressiveness and spontaneity of the band's performance can be clearly heard which I readily attribute to the record's unrefined production. I really have to restrain myself from going into a rant about how thrash bands nowadays systematically suck out the energy from their instruments and suffocate their performance by choosing to overproduce their records. What these bands fail to realise is that the identity of their work is somewhat diminished once the peculiarities of their performance are concealed by bloated record productions. In any case, the bottom line here is that Epidemic's debut is not your average sounding thrash record. It is a dirty and noisy record which unashamedly embraces the imperfections of a pure sound and frames incredible thrash riffage within the crustiness of an unrefined production.

Epidemic's debut is a very unique record in the history of the thrash genre and I would further claim, that it is not simply another obscure piece of great thrash but a very important metal record that highlights the close relationship between thrash metal and other punk based genres. Without any reservation or hesitation I recommend this record to every thrash fan, but also any dedicated extreme metal and punk listener. Thus, I hope that thrash fans will be surprised, as I was, with the refreshing intensity and aggressiveness of Epidemic’s debut while extreme metal and punk listeners will expand their musical interests.