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Toxik - World Circus (1987)

Posted By: v3122
Toxik - World Circus (1987)

Toxik - World Circus (1987)
EAC | Flac(Image) + Cue + Log & MP3 CBR 320Kbps
2007 | Displeased Records, D-00150 | ~ 531 or 186 Mb | Scans(jpg) -> 56 Mb
Techno Thrash / Progressive Thrash Metal | Remastered

Man is a curious creature, more often than not playing the fool while thinking himself a genius in the process. In the late 80s there were many a thrash metal band trying to truly capture and even caricature this basic social axiom, culminating largely in a punk-infused version of the formerly dark and occult-obsessed original that took Malcolm "Scruff" Lewty to heart about metal lyrics being stupid. While there was nothing really wrong with taking this crossover approach, it was often done without any accounting for subtlety, much like a number of the crust punk bands who eat, drink, sleep and shit anarchy while eschewing musicality to varying degrees. For those who sought a new, intellectual angle for seeing man as the witless court jester that he is, there were few musical answers that did so in an overtly thrashing manner, and arguably the most intense and utterly insane of the pack was the New York spawned Toxik.

Naturally there are some bands who had a parallel musical approach to what Toxik was experimenting with, but often didn't match their lyrical savvy or didn't quite commit to ruining necks to the degree necessary to rival the hardliners coming out of the Bay Area or the Teutonic scene. Agent Steel's "Unstoppable Force" was arguably the only album from the same year to truly embody the same level of musicality and intensity, but said band was largely curious about conspiracy theories and science fiction, which I'm sure good old Scruff might not have dismissively referred to as stupid, but probably wouldn't have deemed worthy of "the cause". Watchtower, on the other hand, was on to generally similar lyrical subjects but never quite achieved the insatiable, thrill ride musical experience as captured on "World Circus", though they did land quite close to the ultra-progressive territory hit on Toxik's heavily lauded follow-up "Think This".

But historic diatribes aside, "World Circus" stands as an outright masterpiece for the issue that the previous paragraphs were dancing around, namely the musicality and intensity factor. When superimposed on the thrash style, intensity tends to lend itself to images of Dark Angel bursting out of the grave at light speed on "Darkness Descends" or Slayer cruising into the abyss on "Hell Awaits", or even bullets flying at high velocity in rapid succession as on Sodom's "Persecution Mania". The album in question manages to frequently hit such level of intensity, but also does so with a stalwartly power metal character, namely on "Door To Hell" and "False Prophets" where the same level of speed and fury comes with a high pitched banshee wail that matches that puts Warrel Dane and Geoff Tate on notice and a riff set that is melodically closer to the older Iron Maiden paradigm and sugared over with a lot of technical gymnastics.

The whole of this album doesn't really qualify as progressive in the same way as the one that followed it would, as even the slower material on here follows a fairly methodical, straight-line formula that is simply sexed up with fancier detailing. "Social Overload" presents a sort of upper mid-tempo rocker with a side order of Judas Priest that is more power metal than thrash, but still manages to come off as animated and busy in spite of playing off a simpler model. The lone grooving number "Pain And Misery" listens close to a slightly more frenetic answer to Crimson Glory's "Masque Of The Red Death", whereas the half-ballad "47 Seconds Of Sanity/Count Your Blessings" sort of hits like a more intricate answer to the quiet turned deadly format heard out of Nuclear Assault's take on the token ballad, which is a song that starts slow and then slays like the rest.

When this band is at their absolute best, however, is when they prove to be at their most out of control. The greatest occasions of glory to be found are, therefore, when this band makes their boldest attempts at breaking the sound barrier and speed/thrashing it up as if the hybrid nuclear power plant/circus tent on the cover were ushering in the end of the world. The opener "Heart Attack" and the slightly more elaborate closer "Victims" both accomplish this metronome destroying state of madness brilliantly, all the while retaining a strong, solid rhythmic precision that allows vocalist Mike Sanders to belt out those high notes at his leisure, and he definitely takes every occasion to do so. Anyone looking to mimic the vocals on either of these two songs will have their work cut out for them, not to mention a few broken blood vessels in their heads if they're not careful.

Ultimately, this is just a damn fun album that also manages to be politically aware in a way that will satisfy all of those damned punk rockers who are too busy moping about how much life sucks to enjoy a good Sci-Fi or horror flick. Corrupt world politics, pollution, nuclear annihilation, and all that other stuff is here for all to savor, though Sanders' vocals are so wildly attention grabbing in themselves that even if he was reciting cooking recipes the masses would still be sending their fists into the air in approval. Yea, there is something in this album for just about everyone, save those looking for a modern sound given that the production on here is about as overtly 80s as it gets. Ever wonder what Agent Steel's and Dark Angel's marriage might birth? Give this a listen and call me in the morning after you find your head.

by hells_unicorn, metal-archives.com


New York City's Toxik were a "band" in name only, since it was really guitar-masturbating wünderkind Josh Christian composing most all of their songs and the endless flurry of bumblebee notes scattered all over their breathless 1988 debut, World Circus. Sure enough, album opener "Heart Attack" propels thrash metal of such a frenzied nature at singer Mike Sanders that he truly seems to be experiencing a massive coronary while trying to enunciate all of those lyrics in his improbably high vocal range. Luckily, his life is spared so that he can carry on shrieking his way through another nine heart-palpitating tracks, although some listeners may find themselves wishing that weren't the case. For what it's worth, standout offerings like "Social Overload," "False Prophets," and the title track contain revealing traces of Toxik's roots in more melodic and deliberately paced classic '80s metal. This notion, in conjunction with their sociopolitical messages, tends to leave the quartet stranded somewhere between Queensrÿche and Joey Belladonna-fronted Anthrax – not a bad place to get stranded, come to think of it. But Toxik unfortunately lacked the higher caliber of songwriting imagination that made similarly hybrid outfits of the period, such as Hades and Watchtower, slightly more tolerable, and, in the end, most of World Circus simply flashes by in a hopelessly messy blur. Toxik's next album, Think This, saw Sanders replaced by the slightly less strident Charles Sabin, but there was no fixing Christian's songwriting or desperate need to overplay, resulting in an arguably even more convoluted and overwrought recording.

by Eduardo Rivadavia, AMG


IGNORE the above pathetic ill informed “RIVA-DIVA review of WORLD CIRCUS as it is erroneous and just plain moronic on many levels.

TOXIK was indeed a full working band that fought it’s way up thru the NYC club scene to get a record deal with the Notoriously shady,thieving dishonest Roadracer records company.

Josh’s guitar work is far from "the endless flurry of bumblebee notes scattered all over their breathless 1988 debut,” World Circus- SHERR UTTER NONSENSE RIVADIVA

In fact JC’s guitar work is ground breaking,articulate,nuanced,shred-full,melodic and highly advanced given the date of the release,

JC layers complex un obvious chord progressions harkening of VOI VOD,the speed and precise riff-age and aggression of SLAYER and technical complex grooves found on the first 2 MEGADETH albums
But this approach to song-craft is indeed unique and retains the indelible inimitable fret-prints of a young master at work.
JC is able to add a lot of his own tech speed feel for a bludgeoning assault on the ears and mind.

JC was heavily influenced by ULI JON ROTH, ALLAN HOLDSWORTH and Michael Schenker and it shows in the world class adeptly sculpted guitar solos.

One listen to the epic solo’s in the title track WORLD CIRCUS or DOOR TO HELL stand the test of time and earn Josh is duly deserved place in ranks of the greatest metal guitar players of all time.

This record is an incredible juggernaut of advanced technically advanced guitar playing that obviously went right over RIVA-DIVA’s small head.

Mike Sanders’ vocal skills are outstanding on this landmark album and propel the speed and aggressive song writing to the next molten level.

On pitch,in key and on time,reminiscent at times of Rob Halford ,the melodic hooks and screams stand in stark contrast to the cookie monster grunting and out of key wank typical of Toxik’s so called peers of the day.

Songwriting and lyrics are exceptional on this record with socio-political themes abounding in a clever and un-contrived fashion that indeed can easily be branded “THINKING MAN”S METAL"

In fact World circus is one of the BEST modern metal thrash/speed core debut’s in the history of heavy metal/thrash/speed/prog/tech metal.

All labels and adjectives aside,not many albums can boast incredibly catchy hook laden song writing ,world class virtuoso guitar playing,tight precise Slayer-esq drumming [from the great Tad Leger] Incredible vocals and tight technical bass playing [from Brian]

DO NOT SLEEP ON THIS ALBUM AS IT IS AN END TO END BURNER !

L13 L13, AMG
Toxik - World Circus (1987)

Toxik - World Circus (1987):

Toxik - World Circus (1987)

Tracklist:

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

Bonus tracks:

"Wasteland Demo" (1986)
11. Heart Attack
12. Haunted Earth
13. False Prophets
14. Wasteland
15. Skippy Windshield

16. Wasteland (Metal Massacre IX)
17. Straight Razor (Unreleased song)
18. Finer Points Of Tragedy (Unreleased song)
19. Parasite (Kiss cover)
20. Radio Spot
21. Radio Spot Fall '87
22. Radio Spot with King Diamond

Exact Audio Copy V1.1 from 23. June 2015

EAC extraction logfile from 17. June 2016, 21:32

Toxik / World Circus

Used drive : TSSTcorpDVD-ROM SH-118CB Adapter: 1 ID: 0

Read mode : Secure
Utilize accurate stream : Yes
Defeat audio cache : Yes
Make use of C2 pointers : No

Read offset correction : 6
Overread into Lead-In and Lead-Out : No
Fill up missing offset samples with silence : Yes
Delete leading and trailing silent blocks : No
Null samples used in CRC calculations : Yes
Used interface : Native Win32 interface for Win NT & 2000

Used output format : User Defined Encoder
Selected bitrate : 1024 kBit/s
Quality : High
Add ID3 tag : No
Command line compressor : C:\Program Files (x86)\Exact Audio Copy\Flac\flac.exe
Additional command line options : -V -8 -T "Date=%year%" -T "Genre=%genre%" %source%


TOC of the extracted CD

Track | Start | Length | Start sector | End sector
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3 | 7:16.74 | 3:17.09 | 32774 | 47557
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15 | 54:20.40 | 0:08.28 | 244540 | 245167
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18 | 62:09.03 | 5:07.30 | 279678 | 302732
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20 | 69:42.02 | 3:58.06 | 313652 | 331507
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22 | 77:28.08 | 1:19.06 | 348608 | 354538


Range status and errors

Selected range

Filename E:\Torrent\# MY\Toxik - Discography (2 CD, 2007 Remastered)\1987 - World Circus (Displeased Records, D-00150, Holland)\Toxik - World Circus.wav

Peak level 94.4 %
Extraction speed 1.1 X
Range quality 100.0 %
Test CRC 393DDAF3
Copy CRC 393DDAF3
Copy OK

No errors occurred


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Toxik - World Circus (1987)

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