Social Decay

A thrash metal band on a renowned doom metal label. I can already imagine how this must have played out: thrashers (those few left by 1994, that is) seeing this was released by Hellhound were probably disregarding this as doom metal, while the doom crowd (all twelve of them at that time, probably) being bummed-out because this did not sound like Black Sabbath/Saint Vitus/Iron Man/Candlemass or the likes. As for me at that time, and the years following, I always assumed they were a German hardcore band for some reason, so let's just say we were all kinda confused by this one.

Their sound is a pretty interesting affair, to be honest. The riffing is definitely inspired by Bay Area greats such as Testament, Vio-lence, Defiance and Exodus, and the guitar leads (which are excellent, by the way) have me thinking of what Rocky George did on the late 80's/early 90's albums of Suicidal Tendencies, but contrary to those bands, Vortex of Insanity never goes faster than a sturdy mid-tempo pace, which gives the music a bit of a grunge feel at times. Also, it may be the knowledge that this is a Hellhound release, but here and there I pick up some Saint Vitus vibes as well. As for the vocals, they seem to have found the middle ground between Paul Baloff (Exodus' "Bonded by Blood" vocalist) and Megadeth's Dave Mustaine, with some hints of late 80's Voivod thrown in. As a whole, this does work well enough, yet the lack of really uptempo parts had me murmuring "get on with it" at times as well.

The production is of its time and sounds clear and professional and playing is excellent throughout, but the sometimes dull compositions and (again) the lack of tempo hinders this one from really blowing up. Here and there their sound and approach had me thinking of a band like Wargasm, but with the difference being that these Boston ruffians had their shit together better when it came to songwriting.

You could put this one between late thrash metal releases like Dementia's "Recuperate from Reality" or Catalepsy's "Fruitcakes We Have Known". These albums still had the DNA of 80's thrash running in their veins, yet were also oddly ahead of their time in places, making them neither fish nor fowl at that confusing time for thrash metal. Pantera, Machine Head, Biohazard, Prong and Sepultura had shown which way it was all heading, and riff-based 80's thrash was not this direction, making a band like Vortex of Insanity and their sole album a relic of the past, unable to catch up with the then reigning trends.

To put it bluntly: by then nobody gave a damn about thrash anyway, so this was most probably doomed to fail regardless.