After admiring Becky Cloonan's incredible artwork and the lime green vinyl, the lucky purchaser of "At the Throats of Man Forever" is transported back in time to the late 80s. It's a time when NUCLEAR ASSAULT and TERRORIZER were at the top of their collective games, and hundreds of bands were mailing off hissy, hand-drawn cassette demos for review in underground print zines, haphazardly arranged with typewriters and clunky word processors and secretly copied on company Xerox machines.

The San Francisco band is the brainchild of guitarist Peter Svoboda and a drummer simply listed as "Dr. X". Both contribute vocals, trading off one another with subsonic croaks and high-pitched screams throughout the disc's duration. Tracks like "Technical Difficulties at the Tri-State Crematorium" and "Ebola Attack" demonstrate that these guys capture not only the intensity and glorious analog attack of the time period, but also the sense of humor - an aspect of the era often forgotten by today's "serious artists". There's plenty of reasons for any old-school thrash or grind fan to fall in love with this thing, from the chaotic drums to woofing vocals and apocolyptic riffage. But hotspots like the tangled guitar solo in the cover of ABSCESS' "I Don't' Give a Fuck" and lyrical madness like "Media blitz / demanding that you stay calm / but your girlfriend's bloody vomit has you stuck using your palm" makes this one a must-have. Buy or be nuked.

- Marchman

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