Virginia’s crossover/thrash lunatics Municipal Waste return with their seventh album. I remember when this entire genre resurged like around 2000 and MW were the new kids on the block. Now it’s over 20 years later they’ve been around and are veterans. I was really happy when drummer Dave Witte joined in 2005. He’s a great guy and when he was the drummer for long defunct band Human Remains the shows Internal Bleeding and Human Remains played were incredible. I had a blast and Dave can blast those drums like it’s nobody’s business.

Electrified Brain offers up 14 songs in 33 minutes and The Waste are not here to change your opinion of them. If you enjoy them, you will like this as the title track bursts out the starting gates after some electrical noises. One thing screaming is the production. It’s excellent. The fast ruthless rhythms remind me of early DRI. The chorus is excellent and the groove at the two-minute mark sounds like something off “Dealing With It”. If this part is played live, I can imagine bodies being tossed around the pit like rag dolls.

“Demoralizer” is up next as a nice slow groove number. A true mosher, if you will. Then the vintage 80’s speed erupts with gang vocals thrown in and sounding a tinge like early Anthrax. The guitar solos on this song are great and there’s some melody going on. The guitar riffs are exceptional. The audible bass guitar comes through perfectly.

“Last Crawl” is great with Tony screaming his head off like a madman possessed. He again proves he’s one of the best thrash metal screamers out there. His vocals are fun and if you’ve ever seen MW live, you’d see how much fun he has. At the 2021 Decibel Fest Municipal Waste put on one helluva memorable show. Tony even got pretty emotional onstage. Due to covid the band had not played live in over a year so it was a very emotional speech he gave. The man has heart and I gained a great more deal of respect for him and the band after that show.

“The Bite” has some great dueling guitars in the beginning and the alternating speeds and double bass over the 1.10 part will collapse your chest cavity, pull out your spine and then use your spine to play stickball with your friends, all damn day!
“Thermonuclear Protection” and “Crank the Heat” are all high-speed thrashers, as is “Putting on Errors”. The Waste continues writing fun and tongue n cheek songs and “Ten Cent Beer Night” is no exception.

Municipal Waste writes short songs. Songs are in the two-minute range and provide the perfect balance in terms of technical precision and catchy arrangements. Are some of the songs interchangeable? Yes; but I don’t care. If you like their previous albums, you will enjoy this, quite a lot. It’s fun, thrashing, speedy, groovy and all wrapped up in a great and super clear and crunchy production.

Electrified Brain is a loud and fun record to invite your neighbors over and have a big circle pit up and down your block. Municipal Waste are back to lay waste to all of us!

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