Tango & Thrash / Monster Ball People of Earth

I never understood this Kurt Russell worship that's going on in the re-thrash scene. I get it he was in amazing movies back in the 80s and shit, but why him from all the other action movie stars? Well maybe I am just too young to understand this, but that's not the point. In my mind, if a band is making a tribute to someone, they should make it at least half-decent, but from the looks of it Municipal Waste had something totally different in their mind when they decided to make a split with these fools called Bad Acid Trip.

The worst thing about this is that I can see that the Waste was trying to make something happen here. Their side is actually good compared to what lies beyond side A, but it might just be the worst material the band has to offer. I am not saying it's terrible, but the already small (barely scratching the 4-minute mark) playtime is getting even shorter thanks to a sample as a first track. Big Trouble in Little China isn't a bad song by any means, but when the vocals join forces with the instruments Tony's voice cracks a lot and the bad production doesn't help either. I completely understand that I can't expect this to sound great production-wise, but for the love of God, even the demo EP from the guys sounded better. There isn't much to talk about here. The other 3 songs sound like the previous record from them, fast, aggressive and greatly hardcore influenced. The best one being Captain Ron (Overboard) thanks to the sweet bassline and the riff that's better than the rest on the split.

If this was just an EP without a second band interfering I would say this is an alright release which is enjoyable, but since this is not an EP I have to talk about the other band sadly. The reason I say sadly is that the music they shat out of their asses is just a fucking joke. They don't suit the other band on the record with their crossover(?)/death/grindcore style. Their side starts off with a majestic burp which leads to the total rape of their instruments. I would say that the riff on the first song is extremely weak, but of course, in order for anyone to see what I mean, they would have to hear it buried extremely deep in the mix. One thing I have to give to them is the loud bass, but it's not worth much if the shit they play with the poor instrument sounds like they just heard it from someone that it's recommended to use it while making songs and they had no idea how it works. The lack of melodies would be acceptable considering it's grind, but every single song sounds like there are not 2 members in the band playing the same song. The drummer continuously playing blast beats is very creative for sure, but I gotta say that it's by far the least flawed part of their side of the split. The vocalist is just something else. He goes from mediocre (at best!) growling to ear raping grindcore shrieking in nano-seconds, but then again it just ends up sounding like a mess with the other fuckery that's going on with the rest of the band. His clear vocals are the only thing giving any melody to their songs, but guess what? His clear vocals sound like Serj Tankian on crack with a bucket on his head snorting chopped up garlic while he is getting sucked off with a vacuum cleaner. The ape noises in one of their songs (couldn't figure out which on it was because it's so out of place) describe the audience they targeting and their capabilities to write music perfectly. The last track just really puts the nail in their coffin with them repeating "We are the people of tomorrow!" a few times and then bursting in laughter because nothing says crossover/grindcore more than laughing at our shitty attempts at making a song where we literally say 1 line 3 times. Don't get me wrong I don't have anything personal against these guys, but what they have managed to put on this record is just unforgivable.

Originally I didn't want to give this split less than 50%, but I soon realized that the B-side is so bad that it doesn't really matter that it only takes up half of the record because it managed to ruin the enjoyment factor of the A-side easily. The only actual reason I can think of for people to buy this record is to listen to the Municipal Waste side once or twice and then burry the record in their collection never to listen to it again.

The highlight of the record is Captain Ron (Overboard).