Atomizer - The Only Weapon of Choice

ATOMIZER - The Only Weapon of Choice (AGONIA Records - Cd 2004)

We all love the Australian extreme metal scene with countless killer bands, which play the most vicious and obscure styles of metal. I must say though that among all these bands there is one, which is more underestimated in my opinion and have hardly ever been mentioned among people’s favourites. It is Melbourne’s Atomizer. They have – or I should rather say had, because the band split up back in 2008 – quite vast discography, with several albums, EPs, etc. Enough to convince about the great quality of their music. My favourite piece of their discography is an album released back in 2003 titled “The Only Weapon of Choice - 13 Odes to Power, Decimation and Conquest”. Oh, this is a fantastic piece of old styled thrashing black metal. This album introduced me to Atomizer actually, as before I got it I didn’t know shit about the band at all. And I received this album from Agonia Records back in 2004, when they released it here in Europe. I was so impressed with the music that I even did interview with Jason Healey and more so, I even putted Atomizer on the cover of my fanzine – which I think was the only time (or at least the first time ever), when this band was featured on a cover of a zine / magazine. Cool! So, now it’s ten years since I got to know Atomizer and I guess it is also a good opportunity to play “The Only Weapon of Choice - 13 Odes to Power, Decimation and Conquest” and enjoy this awesome music one more.

And there is really so much awesome music to enjoy on “The Only Weapon of Choice” that I guarantee that the maniacs of pure, classic heavy metal will love it fully. Atomizer was taking a lot of influence from the classic 80’s bands, be it Venom, Bathory, Celtic Frost, Sodom, Destruction, Kreator… But they did that in excellent style, making sure that each song, which was composed was special and had something unique about it. I can sincerely say that there whole album is filled with killer classic songs and not even one may feel like a filler. From start to finish “The Only Weapon of Choice” delivers extremely awesome, utterly possessing and bestially crushing pure metal sounds, and this music truly feels like it was recorded back in the old days. It is a demonstration of power, of violence, viciousness and aggression.

Most of the songs on “The Only Weapon of Choice” are classic thrash metal combined with the black metal ferocity and evilness… and so you’ll witness some truly awesome, utterly aggressive and powerful songs such as “Power, Not Participation”, “Join the Blackheart Reich”, “The Campaign”, “The Only Weapon of Choice” and so on and on… they truly have some great riffs, awesome harsh vocals of Jason and you know… if you like the Aussie scene with Gospel of the Horns, Destroyer666 and Grenade then I bet you’ll love Atomizer as well. These songs have many hooks, many perfect parts to bang the skull… and sometimes like in “For Blackness Absolute” they almost have that punk simplicity and mood. Meanwhile somewhere in between you’ll find such “Sometimes They Hear the Bullet”, which is a pure tribute to Venom I think, but it’s such an excellent song, one of my favourites here! And even better is “When I Die, I Wanna Die Violently”. This is epic, kind of melodic track, maybe slightly similar to Desaser but better! Very catchy song, very memorable and with some quite interesting lyrics. So you can imagine that during the whole album Atomizer is delivering many great tunes and a lot of diversity, so it is just pure joy to listen to it. This is one of those albums, which never gets boring and for me it belongs to some of the best LPs, which came from the world down under. Very recommended!

Standout tracks: “When I Die, I Wanna Die Violently”, “Sometimes They Hear the Bullet”, "The Campaign", "The Only weapon of Choice"

Final rate: 85/100