(written by Islander)
Four years ago we premiered a couple of songs from Where Paths Divide, the eye-opening debut album of the Swedish death metal band Toxaemia that was ultimately released by Emanzipation Productions. We began one of those premieres with the following paragraphs, which four years later are still relevant:
“What causes a cult Swedish death metal band to come back to life after almost 30 years of silence? Not fame and fortune, at least not in the case of Toxaemia. Their roots go back to 1989, and their early demos and other recordings in 1990 and 1991 can legitimately be considered part of the pioneering sound of early Swedish death metal, but they’re not a household name in 2020. Rather than trying to cash in on a name, it’s a much better guess that this revival was spawned by one thing and one thing only: passion for the music.
“Sure, you might guess that nostalgia had something to do with it, but when you hear the music they’ve now made on a debut album that gestated this long, what you feel is fire and fury.”
Why are those words still relevant? Because the creative fire that fueled Where Paths Divide didn’t die away to embers. If anything, it has blazed higher in a new Toxaemia album named Rejected Souls Of Kerberus that we’re proud to present today, in full.
Photo Credit: Dennis Johansson
The new album encompasses 11 tracks, including two songs from the archives of their old demos — “Beyond the Realm” and “Tragedies Through Centuries” — as well as a cover of Dismember‘s “I Saw Them Die”. The album also features the return of friend and founding member Emil Norrman behind the drumkit.
On the new album the main thrust of the music is hard-charging, heavy-as-hell death metal. You get a blast-furnace dose of that right away via the album opener and title song “Rejected Souls of Kerberus”, which the band presented through an official video about 10 days ago.
Toxaemia are of course a Swedish death metal band, but they don’t do their crushing with the old HM-2 chainsaw tones. The riffing in “Rejected Souls of Kerberus” sounds more like a raging circle-saw viciously cutting through sinew and bone, and like a wickedly writhing nest of vipers.
Those rapidly writhing and whining sounds begin to seep sounds of misery, like the pleading of a mutated siren, but the music also surges with a mad pulse and swarming frenzies. On top of that, it features obliterating drumwork, truly monstrous growls, and a final bout of malignant pounding.
A lot of the songs on the new album are just as vicious and just as exhilarating as the opener, but Toxaemia shape-sift across the album too. “Ex Odio”, for example, which arrived with a politically charged lyric video, is slower and heavier, more dismal and decaying, but also more demented.
The music crawls, oozes, and screams, segmented by jolting grooves and eruptions of fast-jabbing violence, laced with an eerily wailing and warping solo, and featuring wild howls as well as gutting growls.
And then there’s the song “Blood Red”, the album’s lead single, which also arrived with a video. Thematically exploring the mind of a serial killer, it’s furiously fast and thrashing, propelled by rapidly hammering and neck-chopping drums and deranged tremolo’d chords.
The riffing also expels throbbing and slugging bursts, flaring blares, and demented slashes. It seems to express not only lethal madness but also hideous pain, and it’s also home to yet another eye-popping solo — utterly freakish and fret-melting this time — and another dose of macabre vocal monstrosity.
From those three songs you’ll get the vivid impression that Toxaemia are not just savage and supernatural in the atmospheres they create, but very good at creating dynamics and putting big rhythmic and melodic hooks into their music, and they haven’t pinned themselves down to one particular style of “old school death metal”.
The band’s intentions of creating variety across the album are further revealed by “Dawn of the Enslaved”, which leans toward “Viking metal” and folkloric renditions of death metal. It’s dramatic, even epic, but it also slugs very damned hard. The melody sounds both heroic and beleaguered, like some fight to the death, and the swirling solo in that one is downright glorious.
“M.A.O.D”, on the other hand, is another high-speed assault, though it’s a harrowing experience, frenzied and bone-smashing but pitch-black in its swarming sensations of cruelty and anguish. And – no surprise — it includes yet another great solo, as well as a segment of highly headbangable jackhammering punishment that feels like being driven deep into the earth, and truly tormented vocals. It too would have made a great single.
Photo Credit: Dennis Johansson
But the truth is that all the album tracks, including ones we haven’t mentioned, would have made great singles, because the album doesn’t have any weak links. The music also benefits from a more modern production and a powerhouse sound. A lot of the time the music feels like it’s going to overpower you and eat you alive.
In a nutshell, this is a standout album of ferocious yet varied death metal that should keep people on the edge of their seats, beginning to end. And with that, we’ll leave you to it (with more details to follow the album stream):
IMPORTANT P.S.: Tomorrow we’ll follow today’s album premiere with a very good interview of the band’s co-founder and bassist Pontus Cervin, so keep your eyes open for that.
TOXAEMIA LINEUP:
Pontus Cervin – bass
Emil Norrman – drums
Stevo Bolgakov – guitars, vocals
Dennis Johansson – vocals
Anton Petrovic – guitars
Toxaemia again worked with the legendary Dan Swanö for the mixing and mastering of the album.
Rejected Souls Of Kerberus will be released by Emanzipation Productions on CD, LP (black and transparent red vinyl versions available, each limited to 200 copies) and digital on November 15th, and they recommend it for fans of Dismember, Incantation, and Wombbath. Pre-orders are open now:
PRE-ORDER:
Webshop: https://bit.ly/tx-kerb
Digital: https://bfan.link/rejected-souls-of-kerberus
STREAM:
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/15bWcusRsDaThBO9CRSSKO
Tidal: https://tidal.com/browse/artist/4320930/u
Deezer: https://www.deezer.com/en/artist/1544997
TOXAEMIA:
https://www.facebook.com/ToxaemiaSweden/
https://www.instagram.com/toxaemia_sweden/