TOXAEMIA - SWEDEN

TOXAEMIA - REJECTED SOULS OF KERBERUS - EMANZIPATION  
Toxaemia, and its second record, piqued my interest because the biography claimed the act is for fans of Dismember, Incantation and Wombbath. Did they get it right? Or did the label just overpromise?
Firstly, it is obvious from the first spin that these rejected souls are pure old-school Swedish death metal still delivering their dark art no matter what. That is important because most of these band reformations are useless. Oh yeah, the act dates back to 1989 and has subsequently reformed in 2017. So, what do we get? It is good to hear pure death metal again as in a song like Hunger. No core, no mosh, no tosh; just death metal.
The band’s line-up includes three original members, one of whom is the drummer Emil Norrman who is back since the last record. He is worth mentioning for the warm sound on the record. A rumbling bass sound is undermixed, but audible here and there. Hear it on M.A.O.D.. The leads are simple, but they have them at least. The riffs are pure and the tempo gallops at both mid and high paces. The vocals are a mix of growls and desperation. Ironically, for a band influenced by Dismember, as mentioned above, and featuring a Dismember cover version, this is not the Swedeath of Dismember, Entombed and Carnage. This is closer to an uptempo Unleashed and early Edge Of Sanity. That sound is best exemplified by Beyond The Realm, which is one of two older demo tracks here. The other is Tragedies Through Centuries. As for other tracks, Ex Odio is the rocky filler. The treble start to Blood Red is not rocky and does not last. The song turns into a cauldron of brutality soon. There is a load of pounding brutality on this record and it is difficult to imagine which earth metaller would end up disappointed. This is one of those times when one wishes Metallian had ratings in increments of five because this record is a 75, but the Pantera T-shirt in the publicity shot dragged the rating lower. Seventy or eighty are good marks and to be sure nothing on this record sounds like Poptera so readers may opt to ignore the T-shirt. - Ali “The Metallian”