Toxik - In Humanity EP (2020)

While we still might not have arrived at the songwriting level of the Toxik classics World Circus and Think This, the In Humanity EP was the material that really made me think we'd get there if the band were able to once again get a proper full-length out on the market. The new tracks on Kinetic Closure and the Breaking Clas$ EP were worthwhile, no doubt, but In Humanity is really the next step forward, the most experimental stuff Josh had come up with, a mind-snapping morass of clinical and evil sounding melodies, scales and harmonies rooted in groovier rhythm sections, bass popping out all over the place, and then the conversion into these more intense, roiling double-bass sections. But another treat here is that Mike Sanders, the vocalist of World Circus, has returned for this material...

That's pretty neat, it's like a hat trick. You get Charles on the 2017 EP, Mike on another, and a sampling of the able new front-man Ron on the compilation that came out around the same time this did. And Mike might just sound the most pure of the three, giving a crazed performance that rivals the high-pitched siren-calls he meted out on the debut. Some of these songs are structured so interestingly, like "Crooked Crosses" which almost has a Voivod vibe, and it's all pretty stunning during an era when most of the thrash bands were built of sheer nostalgia for the Bay Area or Teutonic sounds, or hellbent on crossover pizza-thrash for partying and dressing the part. Nope, this at least comes off as if its trying to break some new ground in the band's canon, and there wasn't much to compare it to. Perhaps Vektor to an extent, sans the vocal style, but this really hearkens backed to the band's past if it were mixed together with some Realm, Mekong Delta or Deathrow on the brilliant Deception Ignored. It's got those cautionary and immediate vibes to it that present your mind with a social puzzle that you are desperate to unravel.

To be fair, I'm mostly talking about the three core studio tracks ("Too Late, Program Insertion" and "Crooked Crosses") which were available on the demo for this some years earlier. There are also some additional demo tunes here which add some more value, despite having a more repressed, boxy tone to their production, and then an instrumental, "Lunacy's Fringe", which is quite a mess beyond the piano parts, and is by far the least compelling thing on the release. However, these are add-ons and not to be confused with the promise shown by the EP proper, some truly exciting shit that had me absolutely jazzed for whatever might happen next...and something DID happen.

Verdict: Win [8/10]

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