Blast from the past albums #1: VIOLATOR - Chemical Assault (2006, Earache)

In this series of posts I'll discuss an album I picked up as a teenager or my early 20s and haven't listened to in a very long time.

Brazilian thrash act Violator released their debut album, Chemical Assault, way back in 2006. In 2008 it was reissued by Earache, which is the version I have in my collection. I'm fairly certain I bought this CD at some point during my first year of college in 2008 (or possibly 2009) - either way, it was around the time this reissue appeared on the shelves. Speaking of which, I definitely bought it in a mainstream record store like HMV - we have 3 independent record shops where I live today, but when I was in school/college, the whole vinyl resurgence hadn't really taken off yet (at least not where I live) and HMV was all we had when it came to buying music in physical format. I'm only bringing this up because I'm surprised they even stocked this album in my relatively small town. It was quite rare to see somewhat obscure metal releases in the tiny metal CD section we had here; I used to get the train to Birmingham and scour the metal section of their massive HMV to find more underground releases. Either way I acquired this album around the age of 16!

Violator are one of the few 'thrash revival' bands I've heard that truly sound like they've been ripped straight from the '80s scene. We saw a lot of bands attempting to resurrect thrash metal of this ilk in the mid-late 2000s ('pizza thrash' as they're sometimes dubbed), but I don't think they always managed to completely replicate the style and image to a tee. And that's not a bad thing - there's plenty of thrash bands I really enjoy who emerged from the 2000s (Municipal Waste, Havok, Evile, Gama Bomb etc.) but factors such as more modern production values or detuning instruments to album covers and even band image often made it easy to tell it was a modern band. Like I said, not a bad thing - thrash doesn't have to come from the '80s to be good. All I'm saying is that Violator really nailed the whole '80s thrash style with Chemical Assault. The album cover and band logo is undoubtedly what made me pick this up, because I'd never heard of Violator before. There's no fucking way this album could be anything other than thrash. On the back of the jewel case are some live shots of the band members in battle jackets and bullet belts - how can this not be good, especially to a 16 year old who'd been obsessing over Megadeth, Anthrax, Slayer, Exodus, Annihilator and whoever else for the past couple of years!! Even the fucking font for the album title and tracklisting reminds me of Nuclear Assault's Survive!!

More importantly is the music itself. I played this a lot in my teens, and then I guess my ever-expanding metal collection made me play it less and less as the years went by. But hey, I'm 33 now and I've listened to Chemical Assault again 2 or 3 times over the past week, and I still get a thrill out of it! Is it better than I remembered? Maybe not. Is it as good as I remembered? Hell yes! The riffs sound like a mixture of early Exodus, Nuclear Assault and Sodom - not super technical, but suitably frantic and endless in scope. And the album is rarely - if ever - mid-tempo. Maybe the odd riff or breakdown can slow from time to time, but 95% of the time this album rips. And the guitars are played in what sounds to me like a more standard tuning (or maybe tuned half a step down) unlike 99% of metal bands these days! The drumming is maybe not as spectacular as some of thrash's biggest names behind the kit (Charlie Benante, Dave Lombardo, Paul Bostaph etc.), but it's serviceable. And they sound organic too.

Yeah, the production is great here in a vintage way - I'll echo the word organic because that's what it is. It isn't glossy and streamlined like so many albums these days. Again, there's nothing wrong with that either. But if you're intentionally trying to sound old-school, then replicating Andy Sneap's production style won't cut it! You need to get down and dirty like Violator have done here! But in a way that instruments are still audible. The guitar tones are beefy, chunky even. Maybe the bass is lacking a little, but overall the instruments and vocals have been mixed nicely where it sounds good to my ears. The vocals are my maybe my least favourite aspect of this record. Not that Pedro's vocals are outright bad or unsuitable for the music, he's just passable at best here really. He has this shrill, kinda high-pitched rasp that does totally suit the songs, but maybe a little more gruffness to them would've been good too. The good news is that the album is full of old-school gang-like backing vocals that really enhance the songs. They certainly boost the lead vocals a lot.

The fact the band have split up multiple times over the past couple of decades, as well as the fact they've only made 3 studio albums to date (1 of which literally came out this year!) is probably a large part of why I kind of forgot about Chemical Assault and Violator in general for a long time. It has nothing to do with the quality of the music - this is a rock-solid slab of thrash that almost effortlessly takes the listener back to 1986, yet was recorded some 20 years later! I've literally just stuck 'Atomic Nightmare', 'United for Thrash', 'Addicted to Mosh' and 'The Plague Returns' into my driving/gym heavy metal playlist! So yes, this album is as good as I remembered, and a fun 37 minute nostalgia trip for me. There's better thrash albums there of course - but as far as 21st century thrash goes, well, it's probably one of the stronger albums in my collection from a band that is essentially paying tribute to that style.
Adam's rating: 8.1/10