Atrophy “Socialized Hate” CD

Among the amazingly impressive array of classic old school Roadrunner Records releases recently reissued by Polish label Metal Mind Productions is "Socialized Hate", the 1988 debut from Arizona's highly underrated Atrophy. I had been wanting to get my hands on Atrophy's two CD's for years and years, but could never catch them on eBay for a fair price, so being among the few of the Metal Mind reissues that I don't own the original pressings of, this is one of the first few that I decided to pick up. With lyrics ranging from the typical socio-political content that was popular with thrash bands of the time period to the lighter fare of "Beer Bong", it's no surprise that this is relatively standard late-80's thrash jam packed with chunky riffs, strong solos, and just a vague hint of melody. There's not a great deal separating Atrophy from many of their other worldwide peers in the lower-tiers (and that's not a derogatory comment) of the late-80's thrash metal realm with what basically amounts to straight yelling vocals (ahhh, the good ol' days) and midpaced to moderately fast rhythms: They were neither the fastest nor the most aggressive band on the planet, nor were they terribly melodic. But solid songwriting, solid production, and solid performances were all on display, so as a diehard fan who grew up on this kind of thing I'm all over this shit. Three tracks from 1987's "Chemical Dependency" demo are added on as a bonus, and there's also a bootleg CD-Rom video tacked on, too. I'm not entirely sure why they opted to include the video as opposed to the entire "Chemical Dependency" demo, but I don't really care aside from the fact that they didn't include "Suicide Pact", which is the only track from the demo that wasn't re-recorded for the album itself. Go figure. As with all of these re-releases the disc is packaged in a nice digipack (numbered of 2,000 copies) and contains an old band bio, brief liner notes, photos, and lyrics. So... definitely a well-handled and long overdue effort in the end. Hey, since Roadrunner's too fucking pathetic to do it themselves, I'm glad someone finally stepped up!

Atrophy "Product of the Past"
Atrophy "Socialized Hate"

These discs can be sort of pricey, but there's really no way around that. I greatly respect and admire the label's move to get all this killer shit back out there, and I've already been having a damn hard time getting my hands on a few of 'em since they've been selling out relatively quickly, so... with that in mind, make the grab while you fuckin' can! This one seems to be in stock at least for the time being:

The End Records