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Quite a few of the folks at Three Floyds are incorrigible metalheads, and the brewery has made plenty of beers in collaboration with (or in homage to) metal bands: a doppelbock called the Creeper with Pelican, an imperial pilsner called Evil Power with Lair of the Minotaur, and a porter called Ragnarok with Amon Amarth, among others. Currently the brewery is selling a Pig Destroyer pale ale, Permanent Funeral; an Eyehategod black IPA, In the Name of Suffering; and a Municipal Waste stout, Toxic Revolution. (All three cost ten bucks a bottle at the Three Floyds brewpub in Munster, Indiana, and they’re also turning up on tap here and there—including at the Sybris record-release show last Friday at Bottom Lounge.)

Founded in 2001 and based in Richmond, Virginia, Municipal Waste is one of the leading American bands in the ongoing thrash revival. Last year they released their fifth full-length, The Fatal Feast: Waste in Space, and on Friday they played the House of Blues with Anthrax, Exodus, and High on Fire. “One of the reasons that I love thrash metal so much,” Miles Raymer wrote at the time, “is that few musical styles can touch its singleminded focus on getting fucked up and fucking shit up.” Municipal Waste certainly fit the bill: according to Encyclopaedia Metallum, the band’s lyrical themes are “Politics, Society, Thrashing, Partying, Humor.”

I’m not the biggest thrash fan—I make an exception for Vektor—but Miles has a handle on a big part of its appeal. “Thrash metal doesn’t want you to contemplate your place in the universe or really feel your feelings, it wants you to drink a rack of cheap beer and light off fireworks in your friend’s basement. It wants you to spray-paint stuff that’s not your property and then do skateboard tricks off it.”

Philip Montoro

Philip Montoro has been an editorial employee of the Reader since 1996 and its music editor since 2004. Pieces he has edited have appeared in Da Capo’s annual Best Music Writing anthologies in 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2010, and 2011. He shared two Lisagor Awards in 2019 for a story on gospel pioneer Lou Della Evans-Reid and another in 2021 for Leor Galil's history of Neo, and he’s also split three national awards from the Association of Alternative Newsmedia: one for multimedia in 2019 for his work on the TRiiBE collaboration the Block Beat, and two (in 2020 and 2022) for editing the music writing of Reader staffer Leor Galil. Philip has played scrap metal in Lozenge, drummed with the Disasters, the Afflictions, and Brilliant Pebbles, and sung for the White Outs. He wrote the column Beer and Metal from 2012 till 2015, and hopes to do so again one day. You can also follow him on Twitter.