Substitute creature!
And she's always on your ass
Substitute creature!
And she's fucking gaining fast!
She's the substitute creature
And she's gonna fucking eat you!
Warning gentle readers, we may be entering the realms of the not entirely serious here; Municipal Waste Waste ‘Em All.
Waste ‘Em All is a gloriously energising shot of an album, dealing us a deck of 15 songs in a leisurely 17:29 minutes**. I have absolutely no idea how old the Wasteoids who made this LP were back in 2003, but this is a gloriously teenage* LP, the clue is in the song titles. Random selection: ‘Drunk As Shit’, ‘Thrash?! I Don’t Mind If I Do’, ‘I Want To Kill The President’^ and ‘The Mountain Wizard’. That and the fact that 13 of the 15 songs here involve swearing^^.
As someone who was a wussy glam rocker during thrash metal’s first flush I was very happy to ride the coattails of the smattering of thrashers who appeared after the millennium when the originals had mostly slowed down too much and learned how to play their instruments too well. That Municipal Waste named their debut LP in homage to Metallica’s best was fitting.
People say I will regret it when I get my hangover
I'd regret it even more if spend the night sober
What I like really like about Waste ‘Em All is the ratcheting affect you get when a heavy band is really inspired by something heavy, which then serves as their starting point^*. Municipal Waste dial up the punk aspect of speed metal’s heritage to serve as rocket fuel without, this is presumably the tricky bit, losing their knack for riffs and structure. How Tony Foresta manages to keep from being strangled by his own vocal chords, Crom alone knows.
Having said that it is the rare moments when Municipal waste slow it down a notch that the music really slams, I’m looking at you ‘Substitute Creature’ and bits of the title track. It then makes it all the more effective when the band turn the afterburners on again.
The whole band are tight and heavy but I am, as always very taken with guitarist Ryan Waste. Sadly my reissue copy bears an RIP for drummer Brandon Ferrell, only 32 when he passed in 2016.
Yes it is all very juvenile and a bit ludicrous but Waste ‘Em All is such a glorious FUN sugar rush. Municipal Waste’s life circa 2003 all sounds a bit like LARPing an Itchy & Scratchy cartoon.
I mean come on they’re nerdy enough to close out the LP with a song about a wizard, (how very Rainbow Rising of them!) then just to be super mature they lace the song with some ace swearing:
Mankind’s gonna fail
The world is in his grasp
Heed the fucking wizard
This day may be your last
Advice we would all do well to take on board there. That this is followed up by a hidden track that sounds suspiciously like Municipal Waste taking the piss out of Iron Maiden makes it all even better.
Municipal Waste started strong with Waste ‘Em All and then just got better and better, if absolutely no more mature and I really wouldn’t have them any other way.
In a world of frequent inhumane acts, difficulty and malice its really nice to throw on a record that can take you to a happy juvenile place that stinks of leather marinated in sweat and beer, where all you have to worry about is remaining upright in the pit.
Better heed that fucking wizard though.
At war with earth nothing I fear
Weed, speed metal, liquor and beer!
Here endeth the lesson.
1317 Down.
*Actually, as someone who was often far too serious between the years 1985-91 let me clarify, I mean teenage in the sense of a sweaty, impulsive, moody overgrown toddler who’d suffered a head injury.
**equating to 0.94 Van Halens. I own longer Neil Young guitar solos.
^Dubya at the time of recording in October ’02.
^^only ‘Knife Fight’ and ‘Death Prank’ let the side down. I am not angry with you Municipal Waste, just disappointed.
^*see Electric Wizard with Sabbath.
