Toxik - World Circus
New York’s cult thrash metal band Toxik mixed progressive influences within their trash metal based songs, thanks to Josh Christian's flashy guitar work. They only released 2 albums before they disbanded in 1992. Both World Circus and Think This became highly sought after albums. Displeased Records just re-released these albums with a lot of extras.
Now the high-pitched vocals of Mike Sanders took a bit of getting used to on World Circus. Nevertheless, with that album they immediately entered in the same league of bands like Agent Steel and Realm. Whilst the music being straightforward thrash, the band also had a flair for good and memorable song writing.
Some of the highlights here are the fast ‘Heart Attack’ and the awesome ‘Count Your Blessings’. After the acoustic intro '47 Seconds Of Sanity' classic lead guitar work sets in, that gives a boner to any fan of shredding guitars. ‘Pain and Misery’ is the predecessor to the kind of riffs that Pantera became famous for. And of course its brilliant title track with that classic circus melody wielded within the song structure.
Despite the fact that the whole disc is great on its own, Displeased Records added quite a few bonus tracks, including radio spots. Every little shred of music and sounds from the debut album era are on there. So my advice to anyone is to avoid any other previous re-releases. The latest news around Toxik is that they just reformed in largely the original line-up. Only drummer Tad Leger didn’t rejoined the fold.
Tracklisting
1. Heart Attack
2. Social Overload
3. Pain And Misery
4. Voices
5. Door To Hell
6. World Circus
7. 47 Seconds Of Sanity / Count Your Blessings
8. False Prophets
9. Haunted Earth
10. Victims
11. Heart Attack (Demo)
12. Haunted Earth (Demo)
13. False Prophets (Demo)
14. Wasteland (Demo)
15. Skippy Windshield (Demo)
16. Wasteland (Metal Massacre IX)
17. Straight Razor (Unreleased)
18. Finer points of Tragedy (Unreleased)
19. Parasite (Kiss Cover)
20. Radio Spot
21. Radio Spot Fall 1987
22. Radio Spot with King Diamond
2. Social Overload
3. Pain And Misery
4. Voices
5. Door To Hell
6. World Circus
7. 47 Seconds Of Sanity / Count Your Blessings
8. False Prophets
9. Haunted Earth
10. Victims
11. Heart Attack (Demo)
12. Haunted Earth (Demo)
13. False Prophets (Demo)
14. Wasteland (Demo)
15. Skippy Windshield (Demo)
16. Wasteland (Metal Massacre IX)
17. Straight Razor (Unreleased)
18. Finer points of Tragedy (Unreleased)
19. Parasite (Kiss Cover)
20. Radio Spot
21. Radio Spot Fall 1987
22. Radio Spot with King Diamond
Line up
Vocals - Mike Sanders
Guitars - Josh Christian
Bass - Brian Bonini
Drums - Tad Leger
Guitars - Josh Christian
Bass - Brian Bonini
Drums - Tad Leger