Municipal Waste - The Fatal Feast (LP) - Gold Vinyl

Municipal Waste have always treated thrash like a house party that somehow survived till sunrise, but The Fatal Feast shows they can stage that chaos in zero gravity and still keep it tight. Out in April 2012 through Nuclear Blast and cheekily subtitled Waste in Space, the record takes the Richmond crew’s beer-and-backpatch energy and launches it into a pulpy, sci‑fi splatter flick. The cover gives the game away, all lurid colours and cannibal astronauts, and the songs follow suit with riffs that pop like broken airlocks.

This was the band’s first full‑length for Nuclear Blast, and you can hear a bit of extra muscle in how it hits. Ryan Waste’s guitar tone is razor sharp but not thin, the kind of mid‑range bite that flatters power chord sprints and those quick, nasty leads he loves. Phil Hall’s bass is more than just ballast, running little counter lines and keeping the low end chewy. Dave Witte remains a machine. If you know his work in Burnt by the Sun or Discordance Axis, you will recognise that delightful mix of precision and pure adrenaline. He snaps from skank beats to quick double time like someone flicking a lightswitch, never dropping the groove.

Tony Foresta is the ringleader as always, barking hooks like a punk emcee and leaning into the album’s B‑movie streak without tipping into novelty. The title track is the lodestar. It is punchy, fast, and catchy, with a chorus that sounds purpose built for a sweaty club sing‑along. It also features a neat bit of lineage in the form of guest vocals from John Connelly of Nuclear Assault, a nod that links Municipal Waste’s feral crossover to one of the style’s founding voices. The accompanying video goes full space‑gore to match, and it still gets a roar when they drop it live.

If you came up on Hazardous Mutation and The Art of Partying, there is plenty here to scratch that itch. The tracks rocket by, most barely stopping to take a breath, yet The Fatal Feast feels a touch roomier than their earliest records. It is not proggy or polite. It is just confident enough to let a riff sit for an extra bar, or to set up a mid‑tempo stomp before kicking the door back in. That pacing gives the whole album a satisfying flow, like a skate deck hitting different terrains on the same run. It also means the hooks stick. By the third spin you will find choruses bouncing around your head while you are making a cuppa.

Production wise, the record lands in that sweet spot between modern punch and old school bite. The cymbals have sizzle but do not slice your ears, the vocals sit high without smothering the guitars, and there is clarity right down to the kick drum clicks. It suits the band’s personality. Municipal Waste have always been serious players who never forgot that metal should be fun, and the sonics here let you hear the chops as much as the grin.

For anyone crate digging, The Fatal Feast vinyl is a cracking pick. The space horror art looks brilliant in LP scale and the sequence works well across sides, keeping energy up without frontloading all the bangers. If you collect Municipal Waste albums on vinyl, this one fills a neat spot between the feral rush of Massive Aggressive and the later stomp of Slime and Punishment. I have seen it pass through more than one Melbourne record store in a tasty colour variant, and it is a reliable gateway for mates who ask what crossover thrash actually sounds like. If you want to buy Municipal Waste records online in Australia, it pops up often through larger retailers and smaller shops that specialise in punk and metal. It is the kind of title that tells you a store takes heavy music seriously, which is half the fun of browsing vinyl records Australia wide.

Twelve years on, The Fatal Feast still feels lively and a bit cheeky, like a midnight screening where everyone knows the lines. It is not trying to reinvent the wheel. It is reminding you why the wheel rules when it is spinning flat out. Put it on loud, let the gang vocals bounce off the walls, and you will get why people keep reaching for Municipal Waste vinyl when the weekend rolls in. As a snapshot of a band locking into their strengths on a bigger stage, it hits the spot. As a party starter, it is gold.