The Crypt blows the dust off another excavated chunk of obscure extreme metal from the "old days", digging down into the usually-awesome Swiss underground to bring out this killer discography from Caustic, a Zurich-based outfit that released one album and one EP between 1990 and 1993 before breaking up, an event largely precipitated by the tragic overdose death of young guitarist Chris Renggli in '93. This stuff came out pn MMP / Phonag Records back in the day and had minimal distribution, but it's a high-grade dose of Swiss weirdo thrash; actually, the more I've listened to it, the more Coroner I can hear as a potential influence. Not sure if that's really the case, but there's certainly a fellowship in the way that Caustic bends and warps their metal into unconventional forms at times. Capturing the entire discography from these obscure and offbeat thrash metallers, this reissue of the band's sole album and prior EP is a skull-rattler of the highest order. Using acclaimed Swiss surrealist artist Paul Racle's fantastic and bizarre sleeve art has an undeniable Giger influence (and the artwork on the interior of the gatefold, the cover art to the Caustic EP, is incredibly Giger-esque ), the collection oozes with a sense of uncanny evil. There's something unique and special with pretty much every single Swiss metal band I've followed from the 1980s, and Caustic fell right alongside 'em, albeit a much younger and less experienced gang of 'bangers.

Presented in reverse chronologic order in the track listing, the EP appears at the end of the record. And these guys were wrecking it from the start. 1992's eponymous debut EP rammed its four tracks of speed-demon dementia straight down your gullet ("Rape And Murder", "Do It Right", "Forked Tongue" and "Agressor"), dark and violent lyrical imagery conveyed via barked, enraged vocals, the songs moving along at a ripping gallop with the occasional tempo change into one of their slightly off-kilter major-key slower breakdowns. Even here, these guys were doing something a little more offbeat; not as wild as the likes of Coroner, sure, but this EP is chock full of weird song structures that veer into unexpected directions, tricky time signatures and angled, pointed riffing that poises some downright proggy moments amongst the steel-plated thrash. I can make out an obvious Slayer influence here in the singer's Araya-esque delivery and the staccato riffing, but they throw in a rhythmic quirkiness and intricate note patterns that ties in nicely with the sheer aggro battery of Caustic's crazed mosh-pit energy. Awesome chorus-drenched solos spike each ripper, with a technical, twisted use of harmonics and circuitous finger-tapped shred that contribute to Caustic's eerie, off-kilter vibe, some cool synth-choir pads emerge later on alongside a quasi-spoken word incantation, and there's even some extremely sparse use of animalistic, death metal-style howls. This EP would probably go down smooth for fans of vintage late-80s / early-90s thrash metal (the riffs are pummeling, palm-muted rippers all the way through), but it has those idiosyncratic touches that give the band a distinct tech-thrash character.

But that's only a taste of where these guys would transport their music on their one and only album, 1993's Malicious. This album is a ten song, forty-five minute nukeblast of ultra-violent oddball-thrash brilliance. It's easy to keep a running list of all of the quirks and stylistic elements that Caustic cruise through, but I've gotta state that first and foremost, this is a flesh/brain-whipper of a thrash metal album, materializing at that weird moment in the early 1990s when the style and aesthetic was going through a kind of "third wave" that sent that sound flying all over the place; if you need riffs, Malicious has 'em. But as soon as it kicks in with its "Intro" track, you get a cave full of "tribal" drumming all pounding away at intense polyrhythmic beats, employing what sounds like Latin percussion, primal stick rhythms, an almost tabla-like sound that hints at something exotic. But instead makes a whiplash cut to their Slayer-influenced technical thrash with "Fool's Game", blending that violent palm-muted, hysteric riffing style and Araya-ish vocals with their sudden time signature changes, gut-churning tempo shifts into power-chug breakdowns and double-bass driven mosh. As this unfolds it all gets more ambitious, threading bits of jazz-tinged piano, acoustic strings, soaring psych-washed blues-scale soloing (even some Floydian hints on songs like "Apoplexy") , smudges of pungent and splenetic death metal, slithering mutant prog guitar weirdness, tweaked-out schoolyard-chant cadence, bizarre discordant chord formations, the pummeling tech-mecha groove of the closing title track that's the one moment on this album that if feels like Caustic are really tapping into that Coroner aesthetic. Oh, and right in the middle of it all, they drop a cover of "Surprise! You're Dead!" from Bay Area art-metallers Faith No More - stripped to it's most rudimentary savagery, this perversely comes off as the most straightforward song on the LP. At the othe end, the two-part "Sweet Dreams" starts off as an odd mix of jazz piano instrumental with some experimental atonalities, then proceeds into a very European-flavored AOR hard rock ballad - what the fuck - that evolves into something much more metallic and crunching, a kind of early 90s semi-gothic alternative metal, if that phrase means anything to you - it's catchy as a herp sore, though.

Not as out there as a lot of the weird thrash metal I rant about, but I love this stuff.