Some words and sentences just get lost in translation. Did Toxic Bonkers perhaps want their name to represent the effects of going insane from toxic poisoning? Decapitated had the same problem with translation when Sauron was in the band. In one song off of “The Negation”, Sauron actually said “Big words locked in the holy books”…
The description on the promo copy couldn’t easily be more descriptive of what Toxic Bonkers sounds like – grindcore, death metal and hardcore, and no, it’s not deathcore! It actually comes off more of a mixture of those aforementioned old-school elements, mostly using old-school grindcore as a base. There’s lots of simple power chords running up and down the neck mixed with blast beats, and from the appearance of the song titles (since I wasn’t provided with lyrics), the words look focused on political subject matter. That’s the bulk of the old-school grind, but unlike grind, “Progress” has 10 songs that amount to 35 minutes instead of the usual 20 short races to the finish line, like most typical grind bands do. The hardcore part usually comes in the form of d-bets every now and then, and the death metal comes in as an odd tremolo picked riff. There’s also a couple of songs where something weird an unexpected gets thrown in, like a strange special effect, a short movie sample, or even keyboards, which are used as some bizarre support to break up the action.
Toxic Bonkers hails from Poland, and much like Decapitated, and I think I should add Behemoth as well, the vocal delivery has many similarities, mostly in the pronunciation. The vocalist usually prefers to stick around a mid-ranged hardcore bark, but every now and then he stretchs himself to take a stab at a lower death growl, or a high rasp.
Like many SELFMADGOD releases, Toxic Bonkers is rough around the edges, very underground, a little bit noisy, and damn fun to listen to while your there. There aren’t very many hooks on the album, but it does manage to get away with being compelling by the sheer intensity that the band plays and writes songs. Certainly they’re not as fast or powerful as a band like say, Rotten Sound, but Toxic Bonkers still play at the limit of their abilities, which makes the album sound like any song could fall apart at any minute. It can be a dangerous and exhilarating feeling.
7/10
The Official Toxic Bonkers Website
Toxic Bonkers at SELFMADEGOD
