Artist: TOXIK
Album: WORLD CIRCUS RE-RELEASE (CD)

Year: 1987/ 2006
Media type: CD

Toxik to this day remains one of the most underrated thrash metal bands ever to emerge on the scene. Their debut album is an intelligent and precise thrash masterpiece, with characteristic vocals and skillful instrumentations. The limited edition contains a history of the band and the classic album digitally remastered using 24-bit process.

Biography :
The 80’s sprung up with a real flood of thrash bands, most of them just being copies of the real thing. Fortunately, some of these groups had genuine character, backed with superb skills and strong talent, sometimes unappreciated, however. Toxik, which easily falls into this category, to this day remains one of the most underrated thrash metal bands ever to emerge on the scene. Formed in 1985 in Peekskill, New York by guitarist Joshua Christian bassist Lee Erwin, the group started off with the name Tokyo, but due to legal threats by another band bearing the same name, changed it into Toxik. The first line-up consisted also of Sal Dadabo on drums and Michael Sanders on vocals. The band started rehearsing and working on their debut material, which oscillated around progressive thrash/speed/power metal in the vein of Metallica, Overkill and Anthrax. Soon, however, the line-up suffered its first changes. Lee Erwin left the group because of personal reasons and was replaced by Brian Boninni. Tad Leger was a last-minute replacement for Sal Dadabo, who had been offered a touring deal with Twisted Sister. Finally achieving a steady situation, the band begun recording their first album in the now famous Morrisound Studios in Tampa, Florida. Produced by Jim and Tom Morris, World Circus was released in 1987 by RoadRacer. The record received mixed reviews, however most of them were very enthusiastic. The heavy, yet balanced instrumentation brought along a thrilling musical mixture, combining excellent technique with catchy melodies and skillful songwriting. The intense speed of the compositions was pretty much overwhelming to anyone who heard this record – “Heart Attack”, the fastest track on World Circus, reached about 268 beats per minute after the initial riff-set! Another characteristic element of the album were the vocal lines. Michael Sanders basically did the whole record in a falsetto, hitting extremely high notes. One of the fans later on measured the scale and concluded that Sanders could top out at around 1770 Hz, which is just about an A note that’s nearly three octaves above middle C. In comparison, another famous metal shrieker, Rob Halford, reached only a G#, that is 1610 Hz. Not everyone appreciated the controversial vocals, though. Still, the album brought Toxik a large group of devoted fans, who highlighted songs such as the mentioned “Heart Attack”, “Social Overload”, the title track and the brilliant “Count Your Blessings”, preceded with “47 Seconds of Sanity”, which was a 47-second long intro. “Count Your Blessings” was later covered by another thrash legend – Exodus. World Circus met with great appreciation from metal enthusiasts and was voted CMJ’s Best New Metal Album of 1987. This success was followed by a tour of Europe and the United States in 1988.

TRACKLIST :

01. Heart Attack
02. Social Overload
03. Pain And Misery
04. Voices
05. Door To Hell
06. World Circus
07. 47 Seconds of Sanity / Count your Blessings
08. False Prophets
09. Haunted Earth
10. Victims

Bonus tracks:
11. Machine Dream (Demo with original singer Mike)
12. Radio Interview (from 1989)