Toxik - Kinetic Closure (2020)

Kinetic Closure is the sort of obligatory re-recording of classic tracks that you might expect with a 'comeback band' once they've got some new members in the fold and want to modernize their material, whether it's because they genuinely think it needs to be brought in line with whatever else is going on, or because they have some issues with the original recordings. There's a new singer here in Ron Iglesias, who honestly does his best to channel his predecessors, often succeeding in the higher pitched delivery, and the production of the instruments is not a far cry from the originals. Louder, more aggressive with the newer drumming, new cover art that ports Think This into the Trump era. To be fair, this was a pretty limited release, so nobody was touting this as some important milestone for the band, and it's usually going to be picked up alongside Breaking Clas$ and In Humanity on the III Works collection, where it's a better valey; but this ultimately falls short to me.

There are just some glaring differences in the production and vocal delivery that don't vibe with me as well as either of the original albums, even though the whole band puts in an earnest attempt. Josh is obviously still a ludicrous player that can match himself, the plunkier bass lines and more intense drums were sure to attract younger thrashers who had grown up on more extreme metal than even the frenetic thrash of that late 80s period. Ron is a good singer and I certainly wanted to hear him on newer material, but at best he plays it safe with the screaming of the earlier front-men, and at other times he sounds a little off. For me, the most attractive part of this is hearing the material from the Kinetic Closure single, a pair of tracks that goes off into the more bizarre, experimental thrash tangent that the In Humanity stuff did. These tunes are both nuts and I think I like them even more than the Breaking Clas$ EP, they certainly got me juiced up for modern Toxik more-so than hearing the other tunes I already knew from my teenage years.

Crazy rhythmic spiraling thrash that helps maintain that surgical feel while dropping a lot of the band's more traditional speed/power metal roots in favor of some occasional mid-paced thrash before the following fatal flurries of Christian's highly technical approach. "No Rest for the Wicked" might be the slightly more catchy of the pair, with more ties to the older material, but "Kinetic Closure" itself is a little further into the asylum and a sign of where the band would head with its next, proper third full-length. At any rate, like their other EPs, this felt like the natural direction the band would have taken if not for the decades between formations, and that's a good thing, we didn't have Toxik coming back with some shitty nu-metal or metalcore and a completely ability to read the room. They knew where they left off, they knew what we wanted, and they began delivery with syringes of shrieking, bludgeoning technique. But as relatively, polished as the re-recordings were, I don't find them necessary.

Verdict: Indifference [6.75/10]

https://toxikmetal.net/