Hazardous Mutation

Among your most highly regarded albums, some of them were not instant favorites but rather grew on you, right? This was the case with my first thrash album, "Seasons in the Abyss". My first hearing didn't really compel me to like it, but nonetheless I was drawn in, and "had" to listen again and again until emerging as (sort of) a thrasher.

"Hazardous Mutation" is the polar opposite. The listener is relentlessly hooked from the first riff; if not from the very first second, then certainly within three seconds.

Nothing on here is flawed in the slightest, from the riff writing and execution to the audio mix. While this is far from technical thrash, the riffs are certainly technical enough at times to intrigue the listener. The variety is decent, tempo shifts employed in a sensible manner. All in all the record is fast and assaulting, spearheaded with a lead singer spitting it out in the style of Demolition Hammer.

The lyrics revolve around "The Thing" and similar horror concepts and B-culture. While this opens up a lot of potential for cheesiness, I actually find the vocal delivery menacing. Though singing about over-the-top topics, the singer is still credible and believeable. A secondary singer blends nicely in the mix too.

"Hazardous Mutation" came out a good 15 years ago and played a huge part in revitalizing the crossover genre. (That the innovativeness would later deteriorate quickly is an altogether different issue...) Discovering it was important for me personally at the time as I had dabbled quite a bit in punk, whereas this was punk done in a beefier, badder and better manner. I even found the band name innovative in its time - how did they even come up with it? - and the album title and cover make for a cool overall concept. The cover is drawn by none other than Ed Repka, and is excellent as usual - except for the flaw someone pointed out: The impossibly small front wheels on the garbage truck!

But when the front wheels of a garbage truck are the only bad aspects of an album, you know you have before you an absolute shredder of a record.